It was bread-making day- the whole house smelled of baking yeast. Twice a week Mrs. Mueller mixed huge bowls of dough to rise in the warmth of the kitchen. We had two brick-lined bread ovens built into the kitchen hearth and they would produce the bread and rolls needed for not only our household but Bree's as well. I'd spent the afternoon in the surgery tending the penicillin colonies, distilling and purifying. Jamie had been set up in his sitting room, the door was open and Roger was in there with him.

I stood outside the door, gathering my strength before putting on my doctorly face and getting Jamie back upstairs. Sleep had been eluding me this week, and a part of me seemed to be actively fighting it. I would snuggle up against Jamie at night, wrapped in the warmth and security of his arms until I heard his breath deepen and regulate as he fell into sleep. My own mind would be going a million miles an hour, so I would turn and watch him sleep by the moonlight. I wanted to spend hours memorizing and cherishing each line, each hair on his head. His face would soften and smooth with the relaxation of sleep until he looked like the young man I had married. His arms and shoulders above the sheet were those of an older man, though, covered with the scars of battles fought and won.

I had loved him passionately in my youth, mourned his loss and then celebrated when we were reunited. We had years since filled with joy and adventure, loss and love but I knew, with a sureness that brooked no controversy, that I loved him more deeply, more completely now in our old age than I could have ever imagined when we were younger. There were no limits to it- it was that which amazed me. Whenever I thought I could not love him more, that this was as complete a love as there could be, another day would dawn and I would know that my feelings were even deeper, more passionate, more central to my world than the day before. He was my universe, and it did not matter where or when we were, just that we were.

There were, however, limits to how far his stamina would stretch. His voice was still strong , but I knew that by this time in the afternoon, he would be starting to feel fatigued. He sniffed once and cleared his throat. "Ye'll need to keep an eye on Silas Whitney, aye? His mother's no match for him. She needs a man to ride herd on that crop of hellions."

Roger 's chair creaked as he shifted his weight. "Aye, its been a hard road for her since Gordie died."

Jamie made a Scottish sound of dismissal. "He wasna all that much of a help when he was alive." The two of them chuckled softly. "Perhaps ye could be introducing Tommy Buchanan to her at the Gathering."

Roger made a low noise in his throat that conceded that possibility. I paused while I puzzled why Jamie was talking about the fall celebration now.

"The north meadow, up by the white spring," Jamie said. "It's been fallow for two years and ye can plant barley there next spring."

"Oats in the middle field, yer thinking?"

"Aye, and the corn in the low one. But ye mun wait to seed until after the full Milk Moon."

"We manured the Higgins' field today, and we'll be starting with MacIntosh's tomorrow."

"Good. Ye'll be needing to geld Betty's colt come summer. Oh, and dinna ferget to fix that fence in the west field before ye turn the mules out. Jem said he heard a painter in the woods near there last week."

That damn Scot! He was giving instructions as if he wasn't going to be around. He'd only be handing out future plans if he thought he wasn't going to be here to oversee them. Anger made my hands clench. Did he trust in my abilities so little then? I certainly wasn't giving up on him, and he'd better damn well not be giving up on me. We would find something that might help him, there were still avenues to be explored. God, how many times had I brought him back from the brink? It could still – No! It would happen again.

It was a physician's attitude, there is always something more that can be done, maybe some out-of- the-way treatment or medicine that can improve a patient just as long as they hold on. I'd heard a story when I'd worked in Boston from a patient who'd worked in the NTSB, doing the investigations on domestic plane crashes . He'd said that was one thing that was the same in every black box tape they'd listened to- the pilots were always working right up to the very last second, trying the elevons, the rudder, trying to get the nose up, any odd thing that might possibly help. "Up until that very last moment," he said, "when they realize they're out of time, only then it's the final 'oh shit', right before they smack into mountainside or the water. Up until then, you can hear them always trying to find something, some way, to pull their nuts out of the fire."

Well, as far as I was concerned, we weren't anywhere near that 'oh shit' moment and I'd be damned if anyone's nuts were getting singed. I swept into the study.

Jamie sat in the leather chair behind his desk, his books open on the desk in front of him, massaging his maimed hand. His untouched lunch balanced on the corner on the desk. At nearly seventy, he was still straight and firm, his shoulders square under the wool shawl thrown over them. His color was good today, the warmer weather was agreeing with him. His blue eyes burned with intelligence and humor, and his eyebrow twitched as he saw me. He registered my mood in an instant, and nodded to Roger. "We'll talk again tomorrow."

Roger rose from his chair facing the desk and stretched toward the ceiling. He nodded to me. "Bree says to thank ye for the motherwort. It's helping her quite a bit."

"Good, I'm glad," I said, keeping my gaze on Jamie. He was eyeing me speculatively.

"Well, then," Roger said, in the somewhat tense silence that followed. "Til tomorrow, then."

"Aye, til tomorrow," Jamie said.

Roger padded out, and Jamie leaned back in his chair. His mouth twitched once as he regarded me. "Ye've got something to say, Sassanach?"

I put my hands on the desk and leaned forward over it. "You bet I do. Sounds like you're handing out instructions."

His eyes dropped and he brushed some imaginary dust off the book in front of him as I straightened up and crossed my arms to await his answer. "Well, ye ken, that's kinda what I do here. I'm a wee bit too old for wrestling a plow behind a mule, don't ya think? If that's what you're –"

"Don't you play the fool with me, James Fraser. You're , you're – " I searched for the word that would convey my anger and frustration, my hands clenched at my sides. "You're surrendering, aren't you? Do you think so little of my healing abilities that you're just going to lay down and die?" My voice nearly broke on the last word, but I swallowed my tears and dug my fingernails into my palms.

His level gaze met mine, and his eyes softened. "Mo chridhe, mo nighean donn. Did ye think I dunno know?"

I raised my chin. "Know what?" I was proud my voice didn't even tremble.

He raised his strong, large and weathered hands in front of him. His maimed right hand had adapted to the loss of his ring finger and for most strangers, it took a second glance to realize that a finger was missing. He stretched his hands out and turned them over and again, examining them. "I ha' lived in this body for nigh seven decades now. It's been beaten and abused most grieviously o'er the years and yet it always answered me when I needed it." His voice dropped. "I ken what it's telling me now."

"And what is that?" I demanded.

"And then it's what you're not telling me, too, Sassenach. I see the fear that lies behind your eyes." My vision blurred, but I heard him rise and come around the desk behind me. "If there was something that could be done, ye'd be planning and carrying on. But ye don't and ye haven't. " He drew me back against the warmth of his chest, wrapping his arms around me. "Ye havena told me at all, and that ha' been more telling than anything ye might say."

"I'm wrong, I could be wrong," I whispered. My face was burning with the need to cry.

He made a Scottish noise in his throat that was full of humor. "Now I know I must be standing at death's door to hear those words on your lips."

I turned around swiftly and stepped away from his embrace. Anger made me shake. "Don't you dare, James Alexander Malcolm McKenzie Fraser, you bloody fucking Scot! Don't you dare! " I was so furious I couldn't even find the words.

His eyebrow rose. "Aye?"

His eyes searched mine and I saw there that he knew why I was angry. That it was my own helplessness that was driving this fury. That and fear. No, not fear. Terror. It ate the anger and left me there, shaking, speechless, while my heart dropped to my feet.

"Oh, Jamie!" I cried and threw my arms around his neck. The tears started in earnest. I had been holding onto them for so long, trying to stay positive and supportive. My feelings of helplessness overwhelmed me and I began to sob loudly. I was facing an unimaginable loss and it felt as if my heart was being pulled from my chest. I hugged him as tight as I could, as if holding him would keep him safe and with me.

He maneuvered us over to the settee and pulled me onto his lap. He held me tight against his chest while I curled against him like a child. He smoothed my hair and crooned soft soothing words of Gaelic that I couldn't even understand and didn't try, listening instead to the love and reassurance behind those words.

As the wave of emotion subsided , the words began to make sense. He was whispering in Gaelic, again and again. "Tha mi duilich. Tha mi cho duilich . Tha mi duilich a 'fàgail thu cùl."

I pulled back, sniffling. "You're sorry? What are you sorry for?"

His thumb smudged a tear across my cheek. "That I must leave you. I know I promised the protection of my body. It seems the time is coming where I must break my word."

"No, no. I won't let you go." I shook my head. I started to slide off his lap. There had to be something. Perhaps if I travelled to Boston, to the medical libraries there -

His arms tightened around me. "Oh, mo chridhe, my heart. I have loved the fight in ye since I first laid eyes on ye. " He pulled back to look me in the eyes. "But, Claire, this is not a fight ye can win."

"There must be some medicines we can try –"

His hands tightened on my arm. He swallowed once and looked away for a moment before his gaze returned to mine. "No, Claire. No."

I put my hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart against my hand. It was the beat that defined my life. "Jamie –" I pleaded. "Maybe we can..." But I trailed off. There wasn't anything in my surgery that would make a difference. Make him more comfortable perhaps.

"Let me ask ye, and ye mun tell me true, Sassanach. How long?" He had on his poker face.

"I – I can't say for certain, but I suspect not very long at all," I whispered.

"Aye." He nodded, as if that was the answer he expected. "Well, that's good, then."

I laughed through my tears. "Good? That's good?"

His eyes dropped to the floor. "Well, I am a bit of a coward, ye ken? I've no wish to be hanging on in pain for years and years." I took a breath to protest that I would use whatever laudanum I had on hand to make sure that didn't happen but he put a finger on my lips. "Aye, I know ye'd do whatever there was to help me, but I ha' lived too long as a free man to spend the end of my life bound to a bed."

I dragged a hand across my eyes. "How can you talk that way?"

"It's a coward I am, and well I know it. You think it's no easier for me to go first? I ken well-" He swallowed and when he looked at me again, the tears that had been brimming in his eyes started down his face. "If it twere the other way around, do ye think I could stand it?" he whispered. "I must ask ye to do something I could never do and that is to let me go."

"Jamie," I sobbed. I clutched him hard. "I can't. I can't-"

"Ye must, Claire. There's Bree, and Roger. They'll be needing your savvy, eh? And Jem, Mandy, Jenny Marie and Billy. And what of Ian's brood as well? They'll all have need of ye for many years to come."

"No, no." I shook my head, crying. "You can't ask me-"

His hands tightened. "Claire. Claire! Promise me!" I raised my tear stained face to him. "For the bairns' sake, you'll do – you'll not… hasten anything along."

I sniffed violently. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to me. I took advantage of it and blew my nose. The amount of liquid the human nose and eyes could produce was really astounding. "You can't tell me what to do when you're gone, " I grumbled, wiping my eyes.

He grinned. "Aye, I ne'er could even while I'm here."

I handed him the wet and crumpled handkerchief; he blew his nose and dropped it beside him. I settled back against him, circled within his arms, my legs across his lap.

"They'll have need of ye," he repeated under his breath as I soaked up his warmth. I wasn't so sure of that.

"It's not fair," I said. "It's just not fair."

"Dinna fash, Sassanach," he said resting his chin on the top of my head. "I ha' had so many years with ye, years that I never thought to hope for. Do you know what it means to me to have had that? To look out over the Ridge and see the family and the community we have built here? Do ye think I ever had the hope of that while I lay in the cave or at Ardsmuir? Oh, dinna fash, mo nighean donn, It's grateful I am for every moment. "

We sat in silence. Every breath he took was precious to me, because now they could be counted. I leaned against him, wrung out by the emotion and just comforted by his heat and nearness.

After a few moments he spoke. "Do ye know?" he asked, wondering. "She was right, I think she was right."

I frowned, trying to think what he could be referring to. "Hmm?"

"The fortune teller, she said I was like a cat. Nine lives, I would have. By Christ, I think she was right."

He was referring to a fortune teller he'd met during his youth in France during his mercenary years. We had had this conversation before. It had been hard to count - yes, he'd been close to death many times, but what counted as a new life or just a near miss? "Well, there was the wound you took at Culloden, and then after Wentworth."

"Aye, when Laoghaire shot me. And the snake bite."

"Right." I shuddered at the memory. "Dougal almost got you. That would be five."

He nodded. "Maybe we should count the near miss at the Battle of Monmouth -"

I sat up. "What near miss?"

"Well, when we charged by the church. A British soldier stepped ou' in front of me. He pulled his trigger aimed dead at me, but the gun mis-fired and knocked him down instead o' me."

"What?! You never told me this!"

"You were shot by then. I didna think you'd be wanting to hear about my own misadventures at the moment. "

"Hmmphm." I settled back against him. "There was the ship sinking."

"Ye mean the Euterpe? But I wasna anywhere near that."

"I thought you were dead for weeks, James Fraser. It was all too real for me."

"Hmmph," he said, conceding the point. "And the yellow fever at Wilmington. That makes eight. This is my ninth life, then."

I reached up and stroked his face. "A hundred lives would not be enough to spend with you."

He clasped my hand in his own and kissed my fingertips. "Then let amorous kisses dwell, " he recited softly. "On our lips begin and tell –"

We finished the stanza together. "A thousand and a hundred score, A hundred and a thousand more ."

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