Chapter 10: Shimmer

Putting the corporal with the bundle of keys to sleep was child's play. The officers stationed at the prison let their guards down easily enough around Jack and had been very helpful with providing the sick man with a comfortable bed, allegedly the very same he spent a couple of months on while recovering from his serious injuries after being found under the door crushed down by the cattle.

The genuineness of their kindliness puzzled Claire, but she would have to bottle the curiosity up for later evaluation and get out of dodge as soon as possible like Jack had suggested. Leaving him in Mary's dedicated care, the Fraser had left the room allegedly in search of the kitchens if anyone asked. And while she wished the keys came with instructions, and preferably, a map, there weren't many rooms in the fortress locked and suitable for use for a prisoner outside and above the rat infested dungeons. If she went into the wrong room, she would just have to quickly lock it again.

Just as one would expect when a captive's door opened at an unusual time, Jamie was clearly alert by the time Claire figured out which way the key turned and how many times, and pushed the heavy and thick oakwood aside. She had not been carrying a candle for the sake of obscurity and ease of handling the keys, so it was only the faint light of the moon that fell through his grated window that aided their measuring up of each other and that light shone on her more than the bed in the corner he occupied. While his tentative, eager movement forward gave her hope, she had to wait till further evidence of the occupant's identity.

"Sassenach?" Jamie brogue was as hopeful as it was astonished and admonishing.

Claire flew to him as a response when he stood up, touching him down, feeling him at as many places as she could, "you're well, you're here, you're alive!"

"I could say the very same back at ye! I thought ye went back to the future!" Jamie looked at her in wonderment, drinking her sight in as much as it was possible in the dim light. "What happened! I didnae let ye go jest so ye come back," he complained. "I saw you disappear, out my arms, you've vanished! How did you..."

"The stones didn't work, or they did, but not the way intended. I will explain it to you, just not now," her fingers were probing the back of his head in view of his injuries at Culloden Jack told her about, but given that her fingers could feel nothing but a scar, she lowered her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him down towards her to shower his face and mouth with hasty, possessive, raring kisses. This wasn't like their previous reunion at this prison as he was well, in one piece and no less worse for wear than she had seen him last. Or, judging by the cured meats' smell coming from the direction of the table, probably in a better condition than while with the starved Jacobites. "We need to hurry," she concluded just as he crushed her against him, swept away by the joy of having her in his arms again. "We have this one chance of getting you out of here. He probably wouldn't do anything harmful in front of Mary, but I'm not sure how far we can trust Randall."

"Randall? Randall cannae be here," he shook his head.

"Because you shot him at Culloden?" Claire wanted her suspicions confirmed.

"No, I didnae. I wanted to finish the wrassler, sure enough, an' we tussled and parried an' a Major from the 20th Regiment appeared out of nowhere, intent on taking down Red Jamie for himself. And that's when Randall turned his back to me. I understand it no, but I would swear on my mother's grave that he took that bullet fe me while I shot the Major," Jamie kept shaking his head, "why, Claire? Nobody was clocking, not till other English soldiers came over to help their captain. An' that's when he hit me in the head so I came to in a cart on the way to here! What could he possibly gain out of that? I had the noose round my neck the last time when he ordered me not to be executed, that was fe his own pleasure. Bleeding out from a belly wound, could he possibly survive that?" Jamie seemed bedazzled by it all, even if it had happened weeks ago now.

Claire sighed in a weary manner, fearful herself of where all these revelations could lead them. Because for Jack to act in this way with Jamie would mean he had been telling the truth about his feelings and could a world where Jack wasn't outright evil be even comprehensible? "He could possibly survive if I tend him," she admitted.

"Why would ye dae such a thing!" He seemed almost as scandalised as when she had asked him to spare Jack's life for Frank's sake for a year.

"Keep your voice down," Claire had to remind him, panicking, "I only put two of the guards to sleep!"

"Why would ye dae such a thing!" Jamie repeated, quieter, but no less aggravated.

"So I can get in here and spring you out. A simple trade for medical services."

"And that didn't seem jest a wee bet contermashious tae ye?"

"The whole thing is rather contrary," Claire agreed, "we can talk about it later. But for the exact reason it is contermashious," she struggled to copy his exact pronunciation of the word, "you need to put this on and then we go, now," she produced cream breeches, a red coat and a triangular hat to go with it.

"If ye suppose I would ha' that uniform on, yer sorely mistaken! I'd rather be ded!"

"Jamie, we will go through the trapdoor I told you about, you will have the uniform on for quarter of an hour and nobody will see you in it," Claire grumbled, having known in advance that she will have to have this argument.

"If nobody will get a sight of me, why the De'il do a need tae wear it! It's not Randall's is it?"

"No, it's the guard's I managed to knock out. We need to move, Jamie," she took a different approach and kissed him, exploringly, needily, invitingly, then looked back at him expectantly.

"Ach alright, ye keep edgy," he finally got onboard with the plan and sent her to the door to keep a lookout while he changed.

Tbc