Jamie mounted first, with Murtagh's help. I passed a sleeping Brianna to Murtagh, grabbed Jamie's hand and mounted in front of him.

Murtagh gently rocked Brianna, staring at her as if not completely believing she was real, and gently handed her to me, so she could rest against my chest as I rode in front of Jamie.

"Are ye comfortable, Sassenach?" He asked as he passed his good arm around my waist.

"As comfortable as we can be, I supposed." I leaned against Jamie, letting his masculine scent fill my senses. It was indescribably good to be so close to him again.

He pulled me even closer, and placed a kiss on the back of my neck.

"Ye have no idea just how nice this feels." He spoke softly against my hair. "To feel ye again, against me, and to have the bairn here with us. Feels too much like a dream. I keep thinking I'll wake and realize it was only a dream."

"If this is a dream, I don't want to ever wake up." I closed my eyes.

"Me neither." He replied softly, caressing Brianna's arm.

"Here, make sure she is warm." Jamie pulled the plaid that covered his back and handed it to me in Brianna's direction. "We are riding all night long, and with this weather, I don't want her getting sick."

I carefully folded the plaid and tied a knot around it, making an improvised sling. Placing Brianna in it, I shifted it around a little, making sure it was firm.

"There." I turned my head to see Jamie's face, smiling. "This way she is protected from the wind and I can share my body heat with her."

"And I can share mine with ye." He responded, holding me more tightly and caressing my hipbone.

"Are ye lovebirds ready to go?" Dougal passed through us on his horse. "We need to go now if we're to get anywhere near Leoch in two days time."

Jamie motioned for the horse to start walking as soon as the last one in the group passed through us, keeping us several feet behind the last horse.

We stayed close enough to see the others from behind, but distant enough so we could talk without being heard.

"Claire, I need to know." Jamie broke the silence after a few moments. "Did ye come back to bring news of my child? Or to be my wife again?"

I sensed the insecurity behind his words. This was the first opportunity we had for a very needed conversation, since our time alone in the cottage had been so short.

Neither of us knew how we were back in 1743 or anything at all that might've happened during our time apart. I only knew what little information I had form researching with Mrs. Graham. But even that wasn't nearly as much as the real thing.

"I came back because I love you." I spoke, squeezing his hand. "And because I couldn't possibly stay away if there was even a slight chance you'd survived Culloden."

I caressed his hand, looking for the fading C shaped scar on inside of his wrist and massaging it gently with my thumb, remembering the despair we felt when that scar was made.

Jamie brought our hands to his lips, kissing the J shaped scar I had on the inside of my own wrist.

"Did ye ken?" He asked. "That I survived, I mean."

"Not at first." I answered, thinking about those first few weeks after Frank's passing. "But I made the decision to come back long before I knew you had lived. My original plan was to go back to Lallybroch. And have Brianna being raised amongst family."

I felt Jamie tense behind me.

"Claire," He spoke hesitatingly. "Did Frank take ye back when ye went through the stones?"

"Yes." I spoke, taking a breath. "He still loved me. And he was willing to raise Brianna as his."

"And were ye happy with him?"

"I was trying to be happy raising Brianna with him." I retorted. I couldn't use the word happy for my time back with Frank. But I had promised Jamie I'd try to, and trying I was.

We stayed silent for a moment, both pondering about my time with Frank.

"Did ye..." Jamie started, hesitating once again. "Did ye leave Frank to come back through the stones?"

"No." I spoke calmly. "He died in an accident two months ago."

"Did he know? About me. Us."

"Yes." My mind when back to when I told Frank the truth about those three years in the past. "I told him everything. Then I had to promise never to talk about any of it again."

I knew I had resented Frank for that. And he, on the other hand, had resented me for not being able to be the wife he'd wished I would be.

Jamie seemed to think about it for a moment.

"I'm sorry you had to loose him, Claire." He spoke sincerely.

"I'm sorry he died, Jamie. But I'm not sorry for coming back."

I still wondered how did I go back to 1743 instead of back to 1747 as I'd expected. But if it meant I had another chance to be with Jamie, and to have us raising Brianna together, I was glad to be there.

"What do ye think happened for ye to end up back here?" He asked as if reading my thoughts.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "I knew you had lived. Do you remember me mentioning Mrs. Graham to you?"

I felt him nod from behind me, then I continued. "She was very helpful from the start. She had a research Reverend Wakefield was doing on Frank's behalf about you."

I waited for his reaction.

"Do ye think he knew as well?" He inquired.

"No. The Reverend didn't have the opportunity to send the material he'd collected before Frank's death." I answered. "So Mrs. Graham showed me evidence that you were alive. Then we kept looking, trying to find where you might be."

As we kept riding, I told him everything from our time apart.

How utterly heartbroken I'd been when I came through the stones, and my promise to Frank that I couldn't keep chasing ghosts.

My pregnancy with Brianna. The cold environment that had surrounded her birth. My fear, as I woke from the anesthesia the doctor had forced into my system, that she wasn't alive. How utterly happy I'd been when she was placed into my arms, and at the same time, how pained I'd been that he wasn't there to experience those firsts few moments with us.

I told him of the utter emptiness I've felt after Frank's death, and the despair the mere thought of staying in the 20th century evoked in me.

Then I told him of all the preparations for the journey back.

"It means, my love, that you're getting inoculated as soon as we are alone without the chance of being interrupted by Dougal and his men." I spoke in a firm tone.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Sassenach." He laughed, kissing my cheek.

After telling him of my passing through the stones, Jamie proceeded on telling me of the year he lived in the aftermath of Culloden.

He told me of surviving the battle, of being spared for a debt of honor concerning the Grey family, and of going back to Lallybroch, severely injured, on the back of a cart.

Jamie told him of his sister's insistence on making sure he lived, and of her pouring boiling water all over his leg to stop the infection.

Then he told me of going to live in a cave after his recovery, and of the constant visits of the Redcoats on the lookout for Red Jamie.

As he told me of Fergus being hurt and losing his hand of a Redcoat, my heart clenched, thinking about the boy I've grown to love as a son.

"And that's why I went to Craigh na Dun." He concluded. "I couldna keep putting my family in danger by staying loose. I made a plan to let myself be imprisoned and to have Jenny and Ian getting the reward for turning me in."

I swallowed a lump in my throat, thinking of the turmoil Jamie might've been feeling then.

"But before I was captured, I had to speak with ye one more time, Claire." He pressed me harder against him, as if making sure I couldn't physically be separated from him. "So I went to the stones, where I'd last seen ye, to say goodbye, ye ken? But for the first time, I felt the strongest pull to that blasted place. As if I had to go up there at all costs. I reached to touch the stone, but I didna think anything would've happen it never happened before."

I nodded, knowing way too well how strongly was the pull of the stones at Craigh na Dun towards me, and remembering how he'd never been able to have anything happening by touching the stones in both times we'd been there together.

"I thought I was being thrown off a horse in full gallop." He spoke with a laugh. "Then when I opened my eyes, that's precisely what'd happened. Then you imagine my shock when I looked up and saw Dougal, Murtagh, Rupert and Angus all around me."

"Probably the same shock I felt when I walked down the hill and saw Angus fighting Redcoats in the middle of the woods." I snorted along with him.

"Aye." I felt the smile in his voice. "Then I tried to move, and my shoulder started killing me. That's when I realized I probably had traveled in time for the first time, because everything was happening exactly the same as it had when we'd first met."

"Do you think we touched the stone at the same time and maybe it caused some kind of fracture in the space-time system that sent us back to where everything started?" I wondered out loud.

"Dinna ken." Jamie shrugged. "What I ken is that I'm grateful to have the chance to be with ye, Sassenach. To love ye again, hold ye in my arms. To raise the bairn together. Maybe even have another bairn or two."

I smiled, and pulling our interlaced fingers to my face, kissed the back of his hand. We had a chance to do wherever life would throw at us. Together. And that's what mattered.

"Just promise me we'll stay far, far away from bloody Prince Charlie this time." I said.

"Aye." He complied.

We kept riding, remembering moments from our time together and little details about our time apart, stealing touches and kisses every now and then.

As morning started to come, I started to notice a familiar shape in the horizon.

Cocknammon Rock.