The Clover and the Tartan

As suggested by the title... Today's the day our dear Stephen finally knows the whole truth. I hope you'll like this chapter, as I know you've been waiting for this moment for a loooong time !

Thanks Guest, Rath101 and Weheartnoelle for your reviews, as well as ImaBiteChu and Jenga-Tree for hitting the follow/fav button!

Guest: Hmmm, a happy ending doesn't necessarily mean you won't suffer, my dear. Hehehehehehe Thanks for your review!

Rath101: The wind will do something stupid. Just… that… good old… wind. Lol

Weheartnoelle: you guessed right! The big bad truth will be unveiled right now. Hope it won't disappoint you! Thanks for your review!

oOo

35. An fhírinne ghlan (The whole truth)

The next morning, a bright sun had risen over Cajo Babo, in a cloudless sky. The thirty or so people gathered in the basement had returned to the surface, not without apprehension, to see the damage caused by the storm. The mansion had hold out quite well and Brianna was relieved: nothing had moved except one of the windows in the master bedroom, which had been broken by a torn branch, allowing the wind to come in and make a mess. Outside, the outbuildings – in different stages of renovation – had suffered more or less damage but nothing beyond repair and everyone had gone back to work with a lighter heart than the day before.

Not wanting Brianna to hurt herself on broken glass, splinters, or nails from the planks that had been torn off by the tree branch, Stephen had taken the initiative of tidying up their room. He had started by sweeping the floor and shaking the rugs to get rid of glass shards, then cleared the planks and the broken window frames. Near the damaged window, the pedestal table in which Brianna had stored her sketches and drawing material had been knocked over and the drawer was open. The wind had scattered paper sheets all over the room. Some had been soaked by the rain and he had to throw them away. Others had been blown away from raindrops and he picked them up with a nostalgic smile. Among the various sketches, he found those he already knew and which she had made during her first days on the Gloriana. Others were unknown to him, including portraits of him that she must have hastily drawn in Wilmington, after he had deprived her of all memory of him. One of them was particularly risqué: in the foreground was the Gloriana's helm, behind which Stephen stood, his hands gripping two handles on the right and left. Between him and the helm, Brianna had drawn her own figure. She turned her back to the viewer but you could easily recognize her by her curly hair and her profile, visible through a few locks. And judging by the lines representing her thin legs and the curve of her hips behind the wheel, she was completely naked. As for Stephen, his eyes seemed fierce, threatening, as if daring anyone to come and steal his precious property.

Stephen cleared his throat and slipped the drawing into the pile that was gradually forming next to him. If he kept staring at this work of art, he would end up not tidying up at all. Tidy up first, praise the artist later, he joked inwardly before leaning over to get more sheets under the cupboard. The pirate froze and frowned. One of these sheets was odd in every way. First, it was perfectly rectangular, with a cutting precision he just never thought possible due to the composition of paper. It was also unbelievably thin and as white as snow. It was impossible not to notice it among the other yellow, thick, irregular papers. Stephen seized it between his fingers and almost jumped as its softness seemed unreal to him. He had never seen such a fine paper in his life.

Carefully, as if it were a fragile object, he turned it over and what he saw on the other side disturbed him even more. There, a "normal" document – yellow, irregular and damaged – seemed embedded in the thin material. Stephen ran his hand over it, expecting to experience the sensation of regular paper. But this side was as smooth and even as the other. For some reason he couldn't understand, his heart began to beat a little faster in his ribcage and he looked down at the photocopied text. It was a Wilmington Gazette article, dated December 26, 1770, and titled "Stephen Bonnet and the Red witch shot dead while attempting to escape."

Stephen frowned. Their escape had been anything but a failure, since they were here in Cuba, safe and sound. His eyes scanned the rest of the text and he felt his stomach churn. "… the couple fled through the streets of Wilmington… perished a few yards from the docks, under the bullets of the North Carolina guard… Miss Fraser's body was handed over to her family…" None of this made sense. They weren't dead, they were alive and well… A shudder ran through him as he remembered that he had one day thought he was indeed dead and that his happiness with Brianna was an illusion. A kind of paradise created by his brain in his last moments. No, it was impossible. It was all real: he could think, he could feel things, and moreover he was almost certain he wouldn't be allowed in Heaven on his dying day. Not someone like him. So there had to be another explanation. Something logical… that only Brianna could explain to him. After all, this document was in her stuff. She had to know about it.

Another solution was making its way into his brain – a solution others had considered before him, especially after their trip to Truro. Although Brianna had earned everyone's respect by taking the treasure maps from a grave containing a fresh corpse and then helping them survive the flu epidemic, Stephen knew it was rumored among the crew that she was not a normal woman. Witch, fairy, and especially banshee – because of her always keeping her hair loose without covering it with a pious cap, and her pale, flawless skin. The captain had never dared to contradict them on this last point: banshees were powerful protective entities, capable of turning water into wine, stones into sheep, but also producing gold and silver for the families to which they were attached. Their singing also announced death, but that hypothesis had been ruled out when her singing had saved Jimmy's soul during the epidemic. So, as long as they believed she was a banshee, they would never hurt her. Stephen had therefore allowed uncertainty to persist, without believing a word of their nonsense.

But this article forced him to reconsider. If she was indeed a powerful magician, it would shed light on many grey areas that had always surrounded the young woman and that Stephen had put up with over time, as he was too obsessed with his desire to tame the indomitable Brianna Ellen Fraser. Her knowledge of many subjects, and not just hidden treasures, her unusual nature, the way she always felt safe everywhere as if she feared nothing and nobody. Her ability to bewitch and seduce the wildest hearts.

He looked down again and his frown deepened. No, that didn't explain the strangely perfect piece of paper, nor the existence of the text. Stephen stood up, ready to leave the room to confront Brianna but his conscience held him back. He couldn't risk anyone to hear them talk about this. He also had to calm down first. Clear things up, figure out some good questions, and prepare for an explanation that he surely wouldn't like. Brianna and her mother had both warned him: the truth had destroyed their family and there was no way he would let such a thing happen to them.

In addition, Brianna was carrying his child. No strong emotion should take hold of her, no evil hand should touch her. Whatever she confessed to him, he had to protect her at all costs. From himself and from others too. Instead of heading for the door, he slowly went back to the pedestal table, put it back on its feet, and pulled up a chair to sit by the window. The sea air coming through it did him good, helped him calm down and that was all he needed right now. So he laid the document in front of him and began to think.

Not seeing him come down, Brianna had gone up to look for Stephen for a well-deserved break. She had spent the entire morning with Flanagan, Mary, and Jimmy making lunch and she was ravenous. Their bedroom rugs were hanging on the balcony railing, overlooking the inner courtyard, which indicated that Stephen still wasn't finished cleaning. Brianna put a hand on the fabric, it was almost dry.

"Do you need help?", she asked as she entered their room. Stephen was sitting by the window, staring straight ahead and only the regular movements of his ribcage told her that she was not dealing with a wax replica. "Is everything alright?"

This time the pirate seemed to snap out of his thoughts and his eyes turned towards her. Without a word, but without any aggressiveness, he put his hand on a sheet of paper and slid it a few inches on the table, inviting her to come and see what it was. Brianna frowned and approached, before her gaze fell on the document. She took a quick breath, before the air got stuck in her throat. Her first thought was to wonder what the copy was doing here, but she quickly remembered hiding it among her drawings so no one in River Run would find it. She had probably taken it with the rest of the papers, as she had packed her bag in a hurry. Then, she had put everything in the pedestal table. Pedestal table which had dispersed all its contents during the night...

She turned her head towards Stephen. He looked strangely serene, though his piercing irises carefully followed her every move, every facial expression. Despite her best efforts to find an explanation that would get her out of this mess, her brain was empty. There was no way to justify the existence of a paper that did not yet exist, on which was reported an event that had not even happened. Besides, how was it possible that the document still appeared on the copy when the original had not been edited? Maybe because it's a copy? Brianna was lost in a bloody time paradox and she felt her breathing quicken.

"Calm down", Stephen ordered softly.

Brianna jumped and stared at him, her heart pounding. The pirate was eyeing her suspiciously, while strangely keeping himself in control. "How do you manage to stay calm, though...?"

"I'm thinking about our child..."

Brianna frowned and he lifted his head further to look her straight in the eye.

"And I decided that whatever happens, whatever truth you dread revealing to me, my priority is to protect you both." His wife scowled and he added before she had a chance to say anything: "I'm ready to hear it, Brianna. But for the love of Danu, don't try to weasel your way out of this again, because I couldn't take it."

Brianna pursed her lips, sensing the threat in his voice, and nodded silently. With gentle gestures, she walked over to the windowsill and sat on it, enjoying the soothing tropical wind on her neck. Unconsciously, her right hand came to play with the ring on her left and she took a last long breath.

"Do you remember when I told you that Frank and my mom were separated but I didn't really know what happened?", Brianna asked with a quick glance in Stephen's direction. He just blinked and she took that for a 'yes'. "In fact, my mother was off to explore the hinterland while Frank was doing some research in Inverness, about an ancestor who died in battle. She discovered a strange place, a hill with huge stones, organized in a circle, that the Scots called Craigh na Dun."

Brianna saw Stephen twitch at the description of the place. He had probably made the connection with the stones he had seen in Abandawe, but she did not want to tell that part of the story yet.

"My mother touched one of these stones and lost consciousness. When she woke up… she was in the same place, but not at the same time."

"How long was she unconscious?", Stephen asked, frowning.

But Brianna shook her head. In an extremely soft voice, as if she feared that by raising her tone, the news would be harder to take in, she went on: "No… I mean that my mother touched the stone in May 1945. And that she woke up in May 1743."

Dead silence fell in the room and Brianna saw her husband's eyes widen slightly. But the rest of his body remained motionless, stretched like a bow.

"That's where she met Jamie. And three years later, when she got pregnant shortly before the Battle of Culloden – of which she already knew few Jacobites would come out alive – Jamie begged her to return to her time, far from the rebellion, far from diseases, to give birth and raise me in a safer world. Although I was conceived in 1746, I was born… in November 1948." She paused again, to keep her emotions in check, but also to monitor Stephen's reactions. For now, he was listening with more attention and docility than ever.

"After Frank's death, my mother found out from old documents that Jamie had not died in Culloden and with my blessing, in 1968, she went back to Craigh na Dun to travel through the stones again and find him after twenty years of absence. After that, I graduated from MIT and-", she caught Stephen's frown and corrected herself, realizing he couldn't know the name of the school, "the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It's… a college in Boston. I had started studying History but after Frank's death, I failed all my exams and decided to move on to… more scientific subjects..."

She smirked slightly, but Stephen didn't smile back and she refocused her story on the essentials.

"One day, I found in Frank's stuff a very old and very damaged death notice, which said that Jamie Fraser and his wife Claire had died in a fire in January 177 - something. I understood that my father knew that Jamie had survived and that he had kept it from her, so that she wouldn't go back… and wouldn't die in that fire. When I saw that, I bought a plane ticket to Scotland and went to Craigh na Dun…"

"A what ticket?", Stephen asked abruptly.

"Plane... It's a very fast means of transport. Much faster than a ship... and it flies." Brianna winced as Stephen's expression grew more and more suspicious. If this kept up, she would soon be tied to a post with a huge barbecue under her feet. "Anyway… I traveled through the stones, took the first ship to Wilmington. As I was traveling alone, I didn't really go unnoticed and was abducted. And… you know the rest."

Stephen still looked at her with a mixture of suspicion and fascination, as if he was finally realizing what he had in front of him. Then his green eyes moved to the document on the pedestal table. "And that?"

"Roger found it… He is a History teacher at Oxford University… He was my boyfriend until we got into a heated argument a few months before I left for Craigh na Dun. I had left him a letter to tell him where I was and when he finally received it, he went looking for traces of me in History. And he found this. Just as I had traveled back in time to save my parents, he in turn walked through the stones to save me. Even though he suspected that the pirate I was going to give my life for had probably taken his place in my heart."

"We should have died that day..."

Brianna nodded. "If O'Brien had waited at Wilmington harbor, as planned… If I had tried to escape with you on our own… Yes, we would be dead."

Stephen's expression softened slightly but he still looked flustered, which was perfectly normal. He looked again at the sheet of paper and shook his head.

"But if we are not dead and the Gazette did not publish this article, how is it still written there...?"

"I don't explain it either... Maybe my mother was wrong and we are not traveling in time but in parallel timelines?" Brianna's voice was a bit higher than usual and she was on the verge of panic again. "I don't know and to be honest I don't think I want to know. This is all too disturbing…"

"And those stones in Abandawe...", Stephen interrupted dryly. "Is that another passage?"

Brianna nodded. "My mother told me about it before I left River Run. She wanted me to know… that there was another way out in case of an emergency. I went to have a look... I wanted to make sure that this circle would open for me too."

"So you were going to leave me." The pirate's voice was harsh and cold, as if he was saying something he had always known. A certitude. Brianna lifted herself off the windowsill and walked around the pedestal table to grab Stephen's face in her hands.

"No... I went there to have a look at the place, nothing more." Brianna then remembered that he had followed her that day and stopped her from touching one of the stones at the last minute, when she was mesmerized by their power of attraction. "If you saw me reaching out, it's because the stones… were calling me. It's hard to explain, but I had no intention of running away from you that day. I swear. I wanted to be with you."

Without warning, Stephen put an arm around his wife's waist and pulled her onto his lap. Brianna let go and slipped her own arms around the pirate's neck, before pressing her forehead against his.

"Until death or anything else do us part... Is that what you were thinking?"

Brianna stroked his blonde hair and whispered: "Yes."

"What could force you to go bac- I mean forward… in the future?"

Again, suspicion and fear made Stephen's voice shake. The very idea that she might one day jump two centuries away from him made him sick.

Brianna pulled back to look at him. "If you died… If I was in serious danger…" She put her hand on her stomach. "Or if our child suffered from a terrible disease that could only be cured in two hundred years… Apart from these three solutions, I can't think of anything that would make me leave you behind."

"I'd go with you, then", Stephen whispered, putting a hand on her stomach. But the painful expression on Brianna at that moment tore his heart.

"Did you hear them?", she asked in a low voice.

"Hear what?"

"The stones… They buzz, they call the Travelers and attract them…"

Stephen frowned. No, Abandawe Hill had been silent the entire time he was there. Except of course for the cries of birds and the rustle of the wind in the palm trees. He shook his head. "I did not hear anything."

"You can't follow us, then…" Brianna's voice broke as she said the words and he saw a few tears appear along her eyelashes. "But you won't have to anyway. Apart from the three situations I mentioned, nothing – do you hear me? – nothing will ever convince me to leave you. I've been thinking about if for a long time... Since November... And even more since I know that I am carrying our child..."

She pressed her forehead against Stephen's and smiled. "I wondered if I was not selfish, depriving a child of a modern education and of a world where women have almost the same rights as men, where people of color are no longer reduced to slavery… But the very idea that you couldn't know your child was unbearable to me. Just as much as the prospect of not waking up by your side every morning."

Stephen's arms tightened around her waist and she shivered, like every time he seemed willing to merge their bodies into one. That need for possession he had had from day one was still there and her time travel story had probably rekindled that relentless desire to chain her to him.

"I'm sorry…", she said, closing her eyes. "All those lies and secrets... it was unbearable for me and I know it was for you too..."

She felt Stephen sigh against her chest. "Don't be… You did what you had to do to survive. If you had told me that fairy tale when we met and without that damn piece of paper, I don't even know if I would have believed you..."

"You would've thrown overboard, tied up and weighted with a big rock so I wouldn't come back to haunt you…", Brianna joked.

"Absolutely."

The young woman burst out laughing and wiped away the few tears that had rolled down her cheeks. Stephen looked up and she fell immediately silent, overwhelmed by his expression. There was still some fear in his eyes, but most of all there was love and respect for all the sacrifices she had made to stay with him and that he had just become aware of.

Hundreds of questions were rushing through his mind. Questions about her, about her childhood, about those women who could go to school alongside men and even about those flying machines she had mentioned. About this future world that he would never see. But not right now. They would have plenty of time later for that. Pulling her closer to him, he captured her lips and kissed her passionately, his head full of new, disturbing and strangely exciting information. The one he had always considered an elusive, indomitable woman, had actually fallen under his spell and given up a whole century for him. He had done it... Brianna belonged to him in every way a woman could belong to a man. He had bought her, seduced her, deflowered her, married her, impregnated her... and now torn her from an entire era. He knew he should have felt guilty. Guilty of depriving her of modern medicine, full citizenship status and many other things he couldn't even think of. But all he chose to remember from this jaw-dropping story was that Brianna's love for him was stronger than the future, stronger than Time itself. Few men on Earth could say that.

Driven by his urge of possession, he pushed her back to get up. Regaining control of her lips, he pushed her against the nearest wall and Brianna gave a soft squeal of surprise and desire. With hasty gestures, he untied his breeches and rolled up the young woman's skirts, as she gripped his neck so as not to fall when he lifted her off the floor. Soon it was done, and Brianna wrapped her legs around Stephen's waist, ready to welcome him inside her. The pirate pulled his head back slightly to keep a clear view of his wife's face and penetrated her abruptly. He admired her feverish gaze, her lips parting to utter the most delicious moans, and the top of her breasts trembling with each thrust. Brianna Fraser had crossed two centuries, an ocean and faced countless dangers. She had saved her family, she had saved him knowing full well that she could die. She was amazing. She was unique. She was divine.

And she was his.

~o~

"What do you miss the most here?"

Brianna shifted slightly to make herself more comfortable on her husband's bare chest. Since Stephen knew the whole truth, pillow talk had taken on a ritualistic turn with him asking all the questions that came to his mind. Some evenings he focused on a single theme: the school system, politics, wars. He had growled learning that pirates as he knew them were an endangered species, but would one day become the heroes of many films and novels. The chapter on Apollo 11 and the first steps on the moon had, on the other hand, quite outraged him: "What is in the sky is not intended to be trampled on...", he had said while Brianna burst into laughter. Other nights, he was only interested in her, her childhood, her memories and her experiences. Tonight was one of these evenings. Mechanically caressing the Irishman's stomach, Brianna narrowed her eyes and thought.

"Um… I'd say music. At home there was always music. Frank had an incredible collection of records… You know, the weird pancakes that make sounds…", she said, looking up. He nodded and she resumed her original position. "Modern transports too. Everything is so much faster in the twentieth century... Here, a single trip between two cities takes two days when an hour by car would be enough... It is infuriating. Imagine that: by plane, it would have taken maybe a day or two to go from Cape Cod to Saba, with stopovers. A day or two to get back to Philadelphia... One week and that was it."

Stephen winced and she gave him a surprised look. "In a week, I wouldn't have had time to fall in love with you. It would have been a shame."

"You've got a point...", she admitted with a small laugh. "I also miss peanut butter, but there are peanuts a little higher up the mountain. As soon as I have collected enough, I will make some. And believe me… your breakfasts will never be the same. Movies, of course, but I've told you too much about that already. And…" She climbed up his chest with a mischievous smile. "Hot showers. It's a bit like having a waterfall with adjustable temperature at home... and you can enjoy it with someone else..."

"That is something I would have liked to see...", he chuckled just before Brianna grabbed his lips and straddled him. It had been liberating to tell Stephen the truth. Brianna no longer had to think before she spoke, to choose her words carefully or the details she revealed about her past. She could say anything now, without filter and as a result, she and Stephen had never been so close, so accomplice. And they had never made love so much, either. Stephen had become insatiable now that he was sharing her secrets, and the kiss she had initiated was already getting out of hand. Stephen had straightened up and slid Brianna's legs around his waist to pull her closer to him. Since the first weeks of pregnancy, Brianna's breasts had grown somewhat bigger and firmer, and it literally drove him crazy. In the heat of the moment, he couldn't help but nibble on one of them when a tempting nipple came to his eye level.

"Ouch!", Brianna protested, giving him a slap on the head.

"Sorry...", he blurted out hastily, but his greedy expression betrayed that his apology was not sincere at all. Suddenly, a doubtful glint passed in his eyes and he frowned, staring blankly at the wall.

"Another question?", Brianna sighed, as she was now knowing that look much too well. She was no longer in the mood to talk, to be honest, and had to resist the urge to stick her breast into his mouth to shut him up and make him focus on other activities.

"Do women still suffer when they give birth in the twentieth century?"

The question came as a blow to Brianna and her arousal died down in the blink of an eye. She groaned and rested her forehead on the pirate's shoulder, but he was suddenly extremely serious and she realized that he was probably worried to see her in pain if she could avoid it.

"Well… it's still not a bed of roses, to be honest, but the death rate is much lower. There are many instruments to predict complications, as well as surgical methods that allow the baby to come out through the belly, in the event of a problem…"

"And you expect me to believe this is not painful?", he said indignantly, almost panicking.

"We are under anesthesia... We are given pain relief products..."

However, her answer didn't seem to reassure the pirate, and his frown deepened. "You won't have any of that here."

"No, I won't… Thanks for reminding me…", she tried to joke, but the idea was really terrifying. "But I will still have a major advantage over all the other women of this century: an outstanding surgeon who would not miss the event for the world. I've already sent her a letter and I'm waiting for the answer…" She put a hand on Stephen's cheek and smiled. "Everything will be fine. My mom won't let me down."

The Irishman nodded, before pressing his forehead against Brianna's breasts, and the girl immediately ran her fingers through his blonde hair. "Do you think… they will both come here?", Stephen asked, wincing.

Brianna chuckled, realizing that he was terrified of Jamie Fraser, the Scottish giant whose only daughter he had perverted, before secretly marrying her thousands of miles away from him and his blessing. "Very likely, yes..."

"Alright… I will die in excruciating pain, then… It was a pleasure to know you, Brianna Fraser."

The young woman burst into laughter and saw that he was smiling too, while tightening his arms around her waist. "Don't worry… we'll just send him hammering some nails on roofs with Murphy, it'll help him relax…", she quipped as Stephen suddenly lifted his head from her breasts with a terrified expression.

"You want to give Jamie Fraser a hammer? So you really want me to die?"

Brianna's laugh echoed throughout the first floor and in response, she leaned over the pirate's lips to kiss him passionately. At that very moment, as they fell back onto the mattress, it seemed that nothing could possibly spoil their happiness. But it takes misfortune to really appreciate happiness, and fate was going to remind them of that. In the most heartbreaking way.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Yes, I know, you might be wondering "What the hell are you going to do to them?". And you're right. There are only two chapters left to this fiction and they will certainly be emotionally challenging. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this one anyway, and until then I wish you a wonderful week!

Xérès