And a Place to Rest my Head

by ShadowOfHapiness

In the aftermath of Wilmington, and with her parents and Roger's fates unknown, Brianna struggles to piece herself back together. As it happens, a chance encounter with her brother and a little conversation might do her soul some good. Or: Bree and Fergus get to interact, deal with their own trauma and actually be the found family they're supposed to be. [Post 4x08]

Am I a little upset the Fraser kids haven't had one scene together yet? Yes. (Season 6, I am begging).

Am I also a little put off by Bree and Fergus' rapes and subsequent trauma being framed as plot points in Jamie and Claire's stories rather than their own and that they never really got to emotionally process and heal from what was done to them? Yes.

Am I writing a 17K one-shot borne out of bitterness and missed opportunities? Yes. :)

TW: Brianna does exhibit behaviour that could be considered self-harm-ish in the first part of this story, and this fic does feature memories and talk of rape for both Bree and Fergus throughout, and underage prostitution/rape for Fergus, because this kid had a terrible childhood prior to meeting Jamie and Claire. If it is likely to be upsetting for you, it's perfectly okay for you to turn away.

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Truth is, Brianna expects it at first.

The crawling of something ugly beneath her skin, her body feeling alien to her, like part of it has stayed trapped in that room back in Wilmington and she's naught but a ghost haunting mournfully haunting the halls of Riverrun like some old gothic romance novel. She thinks it normal, for a time, wishes for Riverrun to feel like home and heal the wounds upon her soul, a safe haven where she can pick herself up and move on and learn to be family to this Aunt Jocasta her mother has left her with, and yet, Brianna has never felt more forlorn.

On the days she's granted enough peace to be by herself, the sheer size of her family's domain, the cloying emptiness around her where all she can hear are the reverberations of her own breath – trembling, unsteady, afraid still, despite Wilmington being miles away – whispering back to her, and her own shadow shaking behind her feel like too much company for her to bear, and do very little to quell the chasm she can feel gnawing at her chest, a hollow sense of perpetual loss that leaves her far too much time to linger in the past, it's touch ensnaring her in it's grasp as Brianna can do little else but remember Wilmington, the Willow Tree tavern and what happened there with far too much clarity.

The inn, the room, and the bed, the scratch of the sheets, the gentle glow of the candle on the nightstand and the jarring rustle of Bonnet's clothes or his heavy breathing – she knows not which – arise, unbidden once again, a past too fresh still she's not yet managed to lay to rest. It matters not, then, that Mama has cared for her bruises as much as her medical knowledge can spare, it matters not that both she and her Father have assured her she's in good care, it matters not if Aunt Jocasta and the people here mean her no harm, it does little to soothe her tired soul when their gazes happen to cross and all Brianna can see is how they look at her, their stares – silent but smart, too clever to do anything but notice what she says not aloud and fill the gaps – laying another mark upon her skin, making it itch, twist and crawl, the ghost of another's hand she's not yet managed to escape coming alive once again in the core of her flesh.

She doesn't realize she's picking at one of the many purple bruises kissing her wrist until Brianna has no other choice but to look down when avoiding the gaze of what must be one of Jocasta's guests or servants – she's unsure which, does not have the courage to bare the weight of their gaze and find out for herself – brushing past her just close enough for her to hear the sound of their breath and for the shadow they leave behind them to pin her there, helpless, her stuttered heartbeat a jerky rhythm to their step as they pass her by.

Watching them walk away feels like Wilmington all over again, Brianna trapped, her body unable to move as Bonnet leered over her, her breathless struggle the sweetest of music to his ears, and as she fights once again to settle her racing heart and stubbornly tries to ignore the dampness gathering in the corner of her eyes, she wonders how much longer this feeling of utter terror will go on for anytime someone dares come near her. Somewhere, she is lucid enough to know she cannot carry on like this and hope to live any semblance of a life, yet at the same time, letting go of this constant feeling of dread seems far too insurmountable to her right now, and, bitterly, Brianna thinks she has a right to feel so. Bonnet hurt me, she firmly reminds herself as she averts her eyes once again from a prying onlooker, I hate it, I hate what he did, but it hurt, and I'm allowed to feel that.

She loathes it here, caught between her pain and their pity, unable to find a way forward.

It's been days – weeks, perhaps, time has trickled down ever so slowly since Brianna closed the door of that place behind her, the cold touch of the brass handle a sharp indent, still, in her fingers – and she has yet to get even a little bit better. Brianna is no stranger to rape – has seen stories and trials on the news two hundred years from now, safe in the walls of her own home, and has enough bases in psychology to know she should probably be getting over it – that people do get to move on from such a terrible thing – and yet here she is, come to a standstill as ahead of her, two roads diverge, and Brianna knows not if there even is a next step she can take. Having to make a choice, to dare go down a path whose outcome is still so uncertain, is too much of an overwhelming decision for her brittle self to make, and so here she stays, afraid, hurt and grieving for something she has lost for which she has no name.

Her skin burns and crawls, the sharp edge of Bonnet's broken nails, the dampness of his sweat-encrusted touch laced with the acrid stench of smoke and alcohol and something profoundly bitter entrenched so deep in her Brianna wants nothing more than to peel it all off and never have to feel any of it ever again. Jocasta tries to talk to her over dinner, looks her up and down, lingers on the little red marks her nails have carved into her forearm with a blind compassion Brianna does not want and can probably see the story her voice cannot bring to speak aloud – everyone can, she thinks, bitter, for murmurs soon run wild, and every stranger she meets seems to be privy to a story Brianna has never wished to share. She does not dare utter a word about that night – does not think she has the words to put on it yet – but she supposes the fading bruises around her wrist, the way she can feel her shoulder tense and hunch just a little anytime one of her many suitors indulges in her company or how she feels the urge to check each corner of the room every so often because she's just never certain Bonnet is gone probably give it away.

They probably all think her to be completely mad.

It is in those moments Brianna misses the comfort of a hot shower, her sweet smelling bath salts, and the feel of soft cotton towels that will not be invented yet for a couple of centuries against her skin.

She wonders, sometimes, if it would be such a crime were she to invent them herself, to bring History forward just a little for the sake of saving her own soul. The thought of cleansing her flesh of any marks with water scalding enough to burn new ones upon those she did not get to choose seems, at times, almost too tempting an offer to refuse.

Then Brianna remembers her mother, and how she tried to mess with Time, to stop it, to change it and play God with something that was never hers to handle, her penance twenty years apart from the other half of her soul, a slow death until she'd made the choice to travel through the stones and come back to her life with him.

Brianna has no doubt that she probably would not survive such a punishment in her state; her bones are already far too brittle, the bruises patching her skin too raw and hurt to hold her together should such a sentence befall her, and the thought of a two-hundred year chasm between her and Roger is enough to threaten to unmake the thin strings holding the pieces of her fragile little heart and make it weep in trepidation.

So instead, here she sits, lets the hours run through her listless fingers, conscious of the minutes passing her by only when someone – Phaedre, maybe – happens to brush her arm as they hurry past her, a faint but steady throb Brianna feels running down the length of her fingers in their absence – looks down only to realize she's bitten the skin there deep enough for a purple bruise to bloom. She thinks, sometimes – and not without a hint of cynicism perhaps – that she'd almost rather the other marks painted upon her body be the product of her own creation. At least those she would have chosen.

Phaedre means her no harm, Brianna knows this, has to remind herself when she catches herself worrying at a bruise on her arm. Phaedre is lovely, is kind and honest in a way Brianna has come to truly appreciate since traveling through the stones – yet the woman's soft words feel oft too much for her to bear, the gentle way she tries to soothe her not enough to undo what has been done to her. Sometimes, she tries to tell her things will get better, and that we canna' have you hiding away in here on such a lovely day, now can we, Misses Brianna? And when Brianna looks out the window, all she sees is grey.

The world has turned grotesque since Wilmington. The bouquet of roses Aunt Jocasta has had delivered to her looks dull where it sits on the mahogany table by her bed, and when the sun filters in through the window and casts it's light upon the many shades of pinks and red, the flowers bring not enough beauty to undo the little seed of ugliness that has been planted in her and growing as, every day, her pain and grief steadily nurture it. Brianna would weep for her loss, had she tears till left to shed for it.

Perhaps, she thinks, if she pinches her sides hard enough, if she deforms her skin enough to remould it with her own hand, then it might turn blessedly numb one day and she'll no longer have to feel anything – Bonnet's hand beneath her own just a distant memory then. She's still alive, she's still breathing, she'll get over it, surely – at least she hopes she might, for truth is, she has little else but herself. Sometimes, she appreciates the little moments she gets to breathe – insanely early in the morning, when the leaves outside are still damp and the people inside have yet to be roused from their sleep – when she gets to slip outside before Phaedre can stop her and gets to sit on the marble steps just outside the door, when she can sit, breathe and take a moment to just – be. They are but fleeting moments, really, gone before she can truly appreciate them, but the few seconds Brianna gets to ignore everyone else and avoid the little thoughts inside her head insisting a part of her will be Bonnet's forever, can forget how guilty she felt at leaving Roger, can forget how lonely she is in the wake of her mother's departure to find him, in the rare moments she gets to merely exist, Brianna is almost grateful to have that.

Then – too soon – life begins anew, looks of pity and sorrow following her around like a second shadow, and Brianna feels it, each time they see her as something broken, no longer whole, their would-be kind intentions another mark upon her fractured skin, and on the occasion Jocasta happens to have a blue-eyed visitor, Brianna flinches, feels her blood freeze and a desperate urge to flee as her body turns to stone when the skin around their eyes creases just right, remembers the suffocating perception of a hand on her mouth and a body that isn't Roger's laying claim to her like she somehow belongs to them, and feels like every encounter she is forced through thereafter takes her apart a little more.

She doesn't dare say anything – Jocasta should not have to be deprived of her guests because Brianna cannot get over herself, Jocasta, despite her goodwill, does not understand the true horror of what she has been through – and instead lets her pain feast upon her heart, feels something break a little further inside her chest every morning, and tries to ignore it as she lets the sound of graphite on paper take her away for a little while, wishes, perhaps, for the thousandth sketch to perchance give her the catharsis she so desperately craves.

From the corner of her eyes, she can see how Jocasta worries – the crease in her brow, the downturn of her lips, the tremor in her hand as someone no doubt tells her of the types of pictures she draws – the dark marks of a graphite pencil she wears like a seconds skin, the ugliness Brianna carries around with her is hard to miss after all. Jocasta tries to talk to her, once, at dinner, she knows her aunt means to converse with her as her lips part several times, a pained inhale and silence, for she has not the words to speak of such a terrible thing. Jocasta wants her to talk, Jocasta wants her to get better, Jocasta tries, but she doesn't understand.

"We canna' live on hope alone." She tells her once, defeat heavy on her shoulders and in her voice, and all Brianna can feel is another hole in her heart as she hears something she already knows.

She thinks, more than once, that she could tell her everything, as her hand curls around the wooden banister as she heads to her room, the faint goodnight she bade her aunt still hanging in the air. Brianna wonders if it would help, to tell her how she feels, to tell her that while Jocasta sat only a few feet away from her as she read by the window, Brianna spent that time back in Wilmington, each turn of the page the sound of her clothes rustling against the bed or Bonnet's trousers as he let them fall and –

Jocasta might listen – but not understand, not really – and the thought of having to put Wimington and the memories of fear, loss, grief and other terrible feelings for which she has no name into words she does not think she will ever have, of making something so sickening real for someone else, makes her skin crawl in revulsion and seals her lips shut.

Instead, she leaves Jocasta for Lizzie, has her draw her a bath scalding enough to leave her skin red and aching as she washes the grime of the day away, as she rubs and gnaws, pulls and scratches until her skin is marked enough for one night, and wishes – with a little less hope each passing day – that maybe Bonnet's mark upon her will eventually disappear.

It doesn't, and days turn into weeks and Brianna feels more alone than ever with not a whisper from her parents and Roger's welfare still unknown to her. Jocasta tries to distract her, tries to get her involved in life at Riverrun – tries to find her a suitor, another husband, a man she will not truly get to choose, a stranger to replace Roger because-

Because Roger is not coming back, her head whispers.

He has to, her heart weeps, stubborn still.

There is nobody to listen to it cry, there is nobody to tend to its hurt, for Jocasta's care is wishing Brianna would let it go, would put it behind her and try to move on. Brianna understands, is no stranger to her tough love for she has seen it many a time before, when Mother and Daddy would fight, when Daddy would be overwhelmed and need the attentions of her Mother's heart but Mama had not enough strength to pull him out from where he fell. On days like those, Brianna listens, says little and scratches had enough to paint little red marks upon her arm when Jocasta talks of handsome young men she intends to host for dinner, the upper crust of American society she thinks Brianna ought to make her début in.

Brianna is not given opportunity to voice it, but she feels sick at the thought of it, feels her knees quake beneath the skirts of her dress and her knuckles turn white where they hang on to the side of Jocasta's couch and is given no time to linger in her distress – she cannot be anything but all right in the eyes of her Aunt. Brianna learns it is best to say nothing after a while, uses etiquette she learns from Jocasta's fancy dinners and pretends to be all right and wishes she might one day be fool enough to deceive herself.

She takes her anger and her grief out on her pillows instead, away from prying eyes and the ears of those who would whisper gossip of her sorry state, catches the skin around her nail once or twice and presses hard enough for the pain to keep her nightmares at bay.

It helps little when, a few hours later, she dreams of Bonnet, the ugly upturn of his lip as he smiled into her neck, the way his touch brands the skin on her hip still and the dissonant sound he made as he laughed when she begged him to stop.

Brianna awakens the next day and thinks she never should have followed him. If she'd just not brought it upon herself, then maybe all of this mess never would have happened.

When she has enough heart to linger upon it, to go back to Wimington and to what happened in that room, she thinks, heart heavy, that she probably should have expected it. When she thinks back to the way Bonnet talked, to how easily he lured her away with the promise of her mother's ring – she should have run then, she should have recognized him for what he was – she should have known then that he had no other intentions but using her for his own pleasure – money and trinkets be damned, like it did not even cross his mind that Brianna would dare refuse him. Or, perhaps worse, that her refusal was precisely what he wished for.

All things considered, she thinks, bitter, she should have known. If she'd not been so stupidly gullible, if she'd not let his promise entice her so, if she'd actually tried to fight back a little harder, if she'd not asked for the ring at all – if she'd not been there, put herself there – then none of it would have happened. It would have been such an easy thing to avoid, she thinks, and instead, Brianna knows she didn't fend him off hard enough, and Bonnet had come out on top.

Really, she thinks, biting her lip and worrying at her knuckles – bruised and purple still, not yet free of his touch and oh so ugly still – she has nobody to blame but herself. In between the pain and the sobs, she remembers telling herself so after it happened – if I'd only, if, if, if… - it's your fault.

If only I'd fought him harder.

Such thoughts are ones she mulls over alone, does not know how she'd begin to share them with someone else when it is so easy to repent her fault in the privacy of her own head. Those days are dark and lonely, but Brianna almost thinks them better than the ones where Jocasta tries to get her to talk, for those are too direct, too brutal, and when her aunt tries to get gently coerce the words out of her, to lay them bare so she'll maybe stop drowning in them, Brianna fails to reach them, fears she'll end up with a crippled tongue in addition to her crippled body.

Her back aches when she awakens the next morning, awkwardly curled in the chair by the window, the pale pinks and purples of the morning sky the corpse of a day barely warmed over. Her eyes burn, sleepless nights filled with bitter regret paint bruises over her cheeks and her body feels even less like her own. Frustration brews in her at not even being able to touch her own bed – it sits there, a few feet away from her only, yet the thought of laying down upon it and subjecting herself to the harsh sounds of rustling sheets and –

It's far too much for her still, threatens to send her heart pounding and set her back even more than she already is.

She wishes her Mother were here – perhaps she knows what kind of medical condition this is, perhaps she knows something that could wave away whatever it is that is wrong with her, or at the very least find her something to spare her a little pain – and each morning, as the sun rises, Brianna prays for her to come home soon with Da and Roger in tow, is no longer certain how much there will be left of her by the time they do. She thinks, once or twice, that hopefully Roger will help put her back together, thinks he might return to her the pieces of her soul she entrusted his heart to keep and tenderly tend to and tries not to think about how her body flinches when she imagines Roger's fingers brushing her shoulder or the memory of his lips upon her neck. It had been pleasant once, Brianna wishes it could be again.

Her broken heart misses him, still. Roger could be a right arse at times, but what they had had, what they had shared, it had been good. Until Wilmington.

Time slips from her, and when she looks outside, to how the pale and weakened tendrils of the morning sun creep through the windows into her room, Brianna thinks even they aren't vibrant enough for her to be hopeful. She probably ought to draw the curtains closed, to not let those tiny slivers taunt her with broken promises of a brighter future, yet the thought of shutting an eye, of going to bed at all sends a shiver down her spine and something terrible crawling up her back.

She flees far away from having to pick either, makes for the front porch of Jocasta's mansion and shuffles down the rich oak staircase, ducks past the first servants headed for the kitchens and holds her breath as she passes them by. Her heart pounds in her chest, terrified at the thought of breathing in the smell of cheap spirits and stale sweat, old candle wax and whatever sickly scent it was Bonnet had about him, and she can just about nod to them good morning around the biting of her lip if their hands happen to brush.

Brianna cannot make it fast enough to the entrance doors, lets herself collapse on the front steps and dares to breathe again only when she is certain nobody is around to hear her.

By all accounts, Riverrun should be beautiful, she knows, and yet despite how much she wishes she could find something pretty, she is unable to see any charm in the home laid before her. Maybe Bonnet has broken this in her too, perhaps he took it with him as he walked out, and Brianna shivers at the thought, brings a hand to her middle and curls it under her ribs, presses hard against the bone to the point of discomfort and pinches her skin through the folds of her shirt and wishes it could feel like hers again. The pain is a welcomed distraction as her eyes follow the curved tops of the trees, for at least this time, she chooses it.

I'm at Riverrun, I'm safe with Aunt Jocasta. Bonnet cannot get to me here. He isn't here, he isn't coming, I'm safe, Brianna tells herself again and wishes the words didn't feel so empty, for then she might actually start to believe it.

She tells herself so again, and again and again. Minutes – hours, possibly, she is not sure, for time is difficult to measure when she has only herself and her erratic heartbeat for company – pass, morning dew has just begun to dry upon the tips of the grass, the sky still boasts of a beautiful coral she cannot see over her head.

Her shoulder might shiver once or twice, and Brianna cannot bring herself to care, for she supposes that the cool kiss of an early breeze is better than him.

Yet Bonnet seems determined to haunt her in wake like in sleep, for the soft morning wind is made to die down, a harsh crack of dead leaves, a murmur of parted grass and a shadow she can feel crawling upon her back whisper more unwanted company, and Brianna has to breathe – once, twice for courage– before turning, perhaps a little sharply, to face them, for she knows now, what it feel like to have that choice taken from her.

Her heart stutters in her chest – stops, even, for a fraction of a moment – it's not Bonnet. Ridiculous, no doubt, that it is the first thing to cross her mind, but at the realization, something uncoils in her just a little, and she blesses this small mercy.

He's taller than the pirate, has dark hair where his was a dirty blonde, and while he might look a little on the thin side, Brianna doesn't think him to be threatening. There's almost a whisper of something she recognizes in how he holds himself, in the set of his brow, or perhaps it's his shoulders she thinks, after a moment, or the curl of his dark hair she swears she's seen somewhere already, yet cannot pinpoint it exactly.

He doesn't look terrifying, and it's at that thought that Brianna worries, for she remembers how Bonnet hadn't seemed all that threatening either – at first, before he'd shown her how awful he could truly be. She stiffens, flinches back just a little when she catches him looking at her, readies herself to run if the need arises for she knows she cannot bear someone else taking her apart.

"And you are?" She is quick to ask him, possibly a little abruptly – she knows, somewhere, that he deserves not her ire – but with Wilmington still so fresh upon her skin and in her heart, Brianna does not think she has the courage to spare him any morsel of kindness she may have left.

If her apparent hostility comes to him as a surprise, he does not seem to let it affect him, for he merely shrugs, "Fergus", he offers her simply, like there is no reason for him to be upset with her. Distantly, Brianna thinks she recognizes the edge of an accent to his voice, and in the moment of silence that stretches between them, she manages to place it: he's French. "I came to deliver Madame Cameron a copy of ce matin's newspaper, and Milord asked me to… Well, to come."

It takes her a minute, for the name sounds meaningful to her ears, an echo calling to something she's certain she already knows, and then Brianna remembers – a touch of fondness in her mother's voice over dinner, the pride in Jamie's eyes as he talked of his other children, of the family they'd both made for themselves, here in the past. She has other siblings, she has a brother.

Vague memories of a story about a her time with Da in France, of a little orphaned pickpocket from the streets of Paris who had weaselled his way into her mother's affections and the little family she'd weaved for herself with Jamie, the very same little boy who had went back with them to Scotland and who had followed them into battle, into home and into heart for he too, loved them dearly. She cannot say she knows more about him aside from his name – Mama's grief had been too great, when she'd come back, sharing with her what she had lost when traveling through the stones far too profound a suffering for her to share – and Brianna thinks that she should be elated, to meet at last a familiar face, to make acquaintance with another child her parents had loved so much, with someone who – by all accounts – should be her brother.

Instead, he's another stranger, a man she knows not enough about to dare let her guard down around, and feels her knuckles go white where her hands are wrapped tightly around her knees, trying with little success to stop them shuddering in fear. She wonders how long it will take him to notice, how quickly he'll piece it together that she's mad, how he'll go about prancing upon her too and take something else from her and offer her in exchange his nauseating sympathy. Perhaps he'll think it a blessing, even, when Brianna knows, by now, that it is just another curse for her to bear, and each day leaves her with less than nothing.

It's exhausting.

"You're Mama's Fergus." She says, before he can ask her anything, hopes to put off the inevitable questions just a little longer while still possible.

"Aye, I am. I take it Milady has seen fit to introduce me already?"

He offers her his hand as greeting, but, Brianna notices, nothing more than that. He doesn't move from where he stands – he is not miles away, just decently far enough to be polite – nor does his body seem to be poised to come any nearer to her, and as she has room enough to breathe around his greeting and not suffocate like with Bonnet, Jocasta and too many other here at Riverrun, she takes a moment to close her eyes, gather her spirits and compose herself enough to at least try and return him the favour, and when she opens them again, Fergus is still there, waiting, patient.

There is something slightly creased around his eyes and in the way he looks at her, but it feels different when she compares it to much of what Brianna has been subjected to – it looks honest, it looks genuine – there might even be a hint of softness to his angular features she dares think, but not hope, for she's unfortunately learnt to grow weary of strangers and their intentions over the course of her travels. The world is not a gentle place – be it in her time or this one – Brianna has learnt that the hard way and thinks, not without a hint of jealousy, that Fergus ought not to be smiling, that Fergus ought to be weary of having it forcibly taken from him by another monster lurking in the shadows.

She has not the heart to tell him so, not so soon after meeting him, and takes his hand instead. It is pliant, gentle in her own, and Brianna thinks he could no doubt do a great many things to her now that he has her in his grasp – he could pull her, snap her wrist, and do far worse than that to her still – but the moment passes, her heart beats again and Fergus does none of those things. He lets her go instead and Brianna breathes as she brings her hand back to her, rubs where he has touched and reminds herself that they aren't all like Bonnet, that not everyone is out to get her.

"I'm Brianna." She decides to offer him, her name not too big a part of herself to gift him with for now. Besides, he's family, surely her name is in better hands with him than with someone like Bonnet.

"Milady has said a great many things about you, it's nice to finally meet you en personne. Je peux-?"

Her French is a little rusty, courtesy of living in America and not really being one for linguistic studies, but when Fergus eyes the empty spot to her left, Brianna thinks she understands. Frankly, she's surprised he even bothered to ask and takes a moment to appreciate how the decision feels in the palm of her hands. It's not heavy, but it means something to her, as she eyes him up and down once again – just to be sure – and deems him harmless enough. She's tall and broad – like Da, Brianna recalls still how awfully proud he'd been of how alike they looked when they first met, and her heart feels a little warmer when she remembers – where Fergus is surprisingly lean. Perhaps a little too much so, perhaps one of Jocasta's grand fancy dinners might do him some good, and – a little selfishly – Brianna thinks she might not mind a little familiar company to fend off a table full of unwanted suitors.

She breathes, decides that Fergus' company is something she can handle right now and nods giving him her ascent, and scoots over so that their knees do not to brush as he sits down. Just enough room for her to make a run for it if ever she needs to.

Fergus won't do that, she admonishes herself, sorrowful that she would think so lowly of her own brother.

Her crippled heart doesn't listen.

"I did not think you would be up so early. Milady… Milady rather likes her rest." He recalls quietly, and does not mention the distance between them Brianna is certain he's noticed.

"Milady?" She asks, confused, a name she can feel means the world to him, yet feels empty to her.

"Madame Fraser."

"Mama? You call her Milady, like some grand baroness?" She asks him, huffs something that might sound like a half-aborted attempt at a chuckle, a musicality to her breath she is not really used to anymore. It seems so odd to her, a girl grown up in the heart of a democratic America, that anyone would be referred to with such an ostentatious title.

Yet when she feels the way it sounds upon her lips, it feels strangely fitting also – her mother did always have that quiet air of nobility about her after all. Brianna thinks maybe some distant ancestor of theirs is no doubt responsible – hailing perhaps from some grand family in England or in France.

"Aye, I do. It is what I first called her, when I met her in Paris, and I suppose that, well," He shrugs, a fond sort of nostalgia twinkling in his eye, a life lived at her mother's side she knows practically nothing of. "C'est resté. She rather enjoyed the sparse moments of rest she could get after working at l'hôpital."

Brianna thinks to Boston, to tending to her mother with breakfast in bed and baking her surprise cookies with Daddy and thinks that maybe they are not so different, despite the two hundred years between them.

She means to comment on it, to perhaps build something with her brother from something they share, try and find her place in this family Mama has made for herself in the past, yet the words never leave her parted lips for Brianna promptly forgets what, exactly, it is she means to say when she feels someone pass them by. The rustle of their clothes makes the skin on her back crawl and the sound of an expensive ring hitting the silver buckle of their belt bends her over, curls her around her pounding heart and her shaking hands do very little to soothe the tremors of fear running down the length of her knees.

It's like Wilmington again, Bonnet breathing down her back, his hand heavy upon the blade of her shoulders, the sound of his belt hitting the floor and the sickening dread in her stomach as she remembers the sound his breeches made as they hit the floor, and then-

And then she sees them walk away, another one of Jocasta's guests hurrying to the splendid carriage awaiting them at the grand gates, an early departure for the city after a night's hospitality at her aunt's no doubt.

It's not Bonnet. Of course it isn't, you idiot.

Their gait different than his, a steady step boasting of a formal upbringing in the highest circles of American society rather than the drunken swagger of a pirate who cared little for etiquette and propriety. Brianna feels frustration and anger thrumming in her fingers where they tremble, hates how one man has managed to weave himself into every shadow she encounters and loathes even more that she would think so lowly of perfectly innocent men. She wishes she could learn to pick them apart, wishes she could remember what it was like, before Wilmington, to look someone in the eye and sense them as they passed her by and not feel like she wants to crawl into a hole and stay there.

Beside her, Fergus has not moved, but she can feel it acutely when he chances a fleeting glance her way, knows he must have questions and probably thinks her crazy too and Brianna hates that she understands, knows that as first impressions go, she's not exactly a poster child for a sane and collected sister. It's been weeks since the Willow Tree, since Bonnet, by all accounts Jocasta is probably right – Brianna should be over it – he's not coming – should be able to talk of it, should be able to look people in the eye, to greet them with a handshake and entertain them with conversation like any sane person would, and yet she can't, fears now that what has been done to her might be enough to drive her insane.

Oh what she would not give for a cup of warm coffee from Roger's espresso machine, thinks of how comforting it would be, to curl her hands around the ceramic mug and let the warmth seep through her fingers and chase away the frigid touch of a ghost she does not want anywhere near her.

"Fuck," She swears sharply, "I'm sorry."

Had she any heart whole enough to laugh and could bring herself to feel such giddiness upon her lips, then perhaps Fergus' obvious bewilderment at her foul language might have been amusing to her. In another life, perhaps.

"I need coffee," Brianna sighs instead, and when she looks to the sky, the morning sun does little to chase the cold that has seeped into her bones, the shadows dancing in the bushes of Jocasta's garden only brought into stark relief as the branches move in the breeze. One of them could be Bonnet, she thinks, he could be lurking somewhere out there – so close – he could have followed her all the way here and she would never know. It's not like she has the faintest idea of what it might be like, to be free of him, when every one of her steps feels like it's being mirrored in her back and the heavy weight of her fears the echo of his hand on her shoulder.

"This early?"

"I doubt Aunt Jocasta would spare me a bottle of whiskey, and I wouldn't dare even think of the rumours that would spread should people know a woman in my condition was drinking. Everybody would look at me like some – I don't know, some freak attraction," She spits, murmured words dancing upon her spine and shaping the way she holds herself because Brianna isn't certain even she knows who she is anymore, "Not that they already don't. I've seen them, you know, the way they look at me, like they think I don't notice. I hate it, how everyone thinks I'm broken, like I'm no longer whole." She says, sombre, looks at her wrists and sees little else but bruised skin and the kiss of Bonnet's nails where he held her down and unmade her so completely.

"It can be tiresome, non? To be nothing more than what you do not have." Fergus says next to her, and something catches the early morning light, and in the corner of her eyes, she notices a brilliant shade of mahogany brushed by the tender rays of the sun. For a fleeting moment, Brianna thinks it a leather glove – it is cold outside, she would not be surprised to find him wearing a pair – yet his hand remains still for a fraction too long, and it is with a sudden pang in her chest that she notices for the first time how unnaturally stiff his fingers look, and what had, just a moment ago, appeared to be leather, is, in fact, wood. Her brother is missing a hand.

Her eyes widen and something twists in her chest as she stares, and Brianna can only imagine the emptiness she would be left with had it happened to her, the twist in her heart at the thought of seeing how incomplete she would be every time she would look down. The thought of bearing other people's curiosity, their judgment, their unwanted sympathy and their attempts to fix her with their apologies seems, all of a sudden, so much worse.

"I-I don't think," She stutters, means to say something, yet is unsure of what is appropriate - what words could one offer to fill an emptiness that would never heal? What kind of condolence could one spare for something lost but not dead? – for she does not think him so, not at all. It is herself, she thinks, who feels like Bonnet has been so present around her it's been difficult to be anything but what he did to her. The irony is not lost upon Brianna, how she shies away from the way everyone looks at her, yet sentences herself with the same gaze – it feels different, however, not quite the same. "I did not mean to imply that you are a half man, or lesser, or, I don't know-"

"Je sais, you did not mean to." Fergus shrugs, offers her a quirk of the lips and effortlessly brushes off her comment where Brianna has let the whispers of Riverrun coat her like a second skin.

She's not ashamed to admit to herself that she is, perhaps, a little jealous.

"Does it not bother you, what people say?" She asks him.

"What haven't they said." Fergus chuckles, a quirk of the lips caught between something fond and something aching, but Brianna notices the way his hand curls around something that is no longer there, sees the way his skin pinches just a little around his eyes, is all to intimately acquaintanced with the sound of his breath catching as he tries to brush it off, and needs no words to understand that people do think less of him because of his condition.

And still, his spirits seem to her none too dampened.

"How do you get over it?" She asks him, envy at how easy it seems for him – and her mother, and Da, and Murtagh, and everyone else – to look whole to the world, to still have enough heart to find something worth feeling happiness over. "Mama told me about Da, about Wentworth Prison, about what happened there," She swallows, "They've both had to endure their fair share of hardships with Culloden, and then twenty years apart, but when I look at them, I mean, they're both still here. Da, he seems… Better." She's still angry at him, she's still upset for doing to Roger what he did, but the weight of her resentment has recently felt like too much a burden for her to carry. A part of her heart goes out to her father still, for she knows how heinous it is, to constantly feel the touch of someone else upon her flesh and their whispered poison in her ears in each moment of silence every day.

"Pain is different for every person, I suppose," Fergus ventures, no hint of condemnation at her not being able to pick herself up, "Je ne pense pas that there is just one way to heal from it."

"Da…" Brianna starts, and then stops, for she is not sure it is her place to dare speak aloud something she has not been through. She can barely find the words strong enough to acknowledge what happened to her at the Willow Tree, she is not sure she knows of ones to express something she knows nothing of aside that it happened. Eventually, she decides to spare her father, does not think going over what that man did to him will help her any. "Da wants me to think it's like him, that I'll heal and be whole again, but… It's not." She says, voice cracking with frustration.

Truth is, Brianna would give anything, for it to be like Da, for at least she knows he overcame it, she has seen it for herself how well he's healed and thinks that if it had been like him, then perhaps she could also put Wilmington behind her, pretend like it never happened or forget it or even fool herself into believing she's already done all the work to recover – like him – and is now in a place where she can let it go.

She can, she will.

She tries very hard not to think of how his lips felt upon her neck, how his body felt suffocating and grating atop her, how it stung her when he dug one of his fingers into a bruise upon her cheek and ignores the part of her that whispers she'll never leave Wilmington at all.

A tremor runs down her hands, fingers shaking as they form an unsteady fist, and Brianna sees herself going through it all again, thinks, this time, of everything she could have done differently to avoid it or to better fight Bonnet off – if she'd just hit him, been strong enough to use that fist and smash it into his face, if she'd tried to resist him just a little harder she thinks, then she probably would have escaped unscathed, would not have to bear the canvas of his depravity upon her soul for the rest of her life.

"I didn't know Bonnet, not like Da, with Randall – Randall hated him, he wanted to hurt Da because he knew him." She says, brushes over a story whose details she has been mostly spared of but her body understands, "I didn't know Bonnet, and I never will know him because I don't want to know him, and…" She says, lips quivering and something heavy in her throat at the thought of being bound to that man forever, "He shouldn't get to live inside me like this because I don't want it, I don't want to give him that. But… When everyone looks at me like that, it's really hard to be anything else than what he did to me." She swallows, something catches in her chest and her eyes burn where tears gather in the corner of her eyes. The world around her splinters and shifts just slightly as something wet trickles down her cheek.

It has yet to right itself since Wilmington, and Brianna thinks maybe Bonnet has taken this from her too.

"The worst part is," She continues, her breath trembling and her voice snappish, rough and scraping, the rawness of her suffering such an ugly thing to put into words, "He didn't even do it because I did something to him." She says, lashing out and feels satisfied when the sound of what she says cuts sharply through the air, feels it when the sapling of grass she's ripped out of the ground slide out of her sweaty palm, the sting of her nails in her hand a pain she welcomes with open arms.

It's better than Bonnet, than the torment he decided to inflict upon her and the pleasure he got out of it – he'd relished in her terror, in knowing he'd been the one to make her so scared, that he'd get to walk out of that tavern with naught the ghost of a scrape upon his skin while she had to bear the memory of what he'd done to her for the rest of her life.

"He did it because he could… Because, I don't know, it-" She sniffles as she catches her breath, stops because she is unsure whether she knows the answer and does not have the words to say it aloud, or because she simply cannot comprehend it still, and Brianna does not wish to find out which.

"It made him feel powerful, to have me like that. To hold me beneath him and not listen when I said no. When I begged him to stop."

Her parted lips tremble, a rush of air leaves her, accented words and a murmur of pain she knows all too well expressed for her in a release.

The distant sound of chirping morning birds makes for a nauseating levity as, after a too-long second, Brianna understands.

Beside her, she does not miss the way the fingers of Fergus' good hand jerk at the memory. It's small, barely noticeable, and she doubts anyone fortunate enough to have been spared her assault would notice it, but she does. She sees the way his discomfort crawls up his arm, sees the kiss of someone else's touch burn his skin, sees how badly he wants to pull away and knows what it's like because it's a hurt she's trying to heal from still.

Her heart sinks beneath a bitter wave.

"I tried to find a reason for it, but sometimes," Fergus says, his voice surprisingly small, unlike the way she's heard him speak so far. Shame is an ugly coat upon his shoulders, and the sorrow lilt cracking his words is a repellent kind of music to her ears. Distantly, Brianna thinks for the first time that perhaps this is what Jocasta and the others see, when they look at her. "Sometimes there is no further explanation, parfois that's all that it is."

Something comes undone inside of her, and for the first time in far too long, Brianna can finally breathe again, the heavy burden of guilt she's been carrying around with her fraying a little at the edges now that she at last has an explanation for her pain that does not give Bonnet reason nor sentence her with guilt.

"He- You…" Her heart has yet to start again, her words feel ever so clumsy as she tries to grasp for something – she barely has enough to acknowledge what happened to her, let alone for her brother – but inside of her, something touches the tendermost of her heart, a mournful kind of understanding at not being so alone anymore. "You were-" Her throat catches again, for it is still too coarse – too ugly – a word for her to dare speak aloud but Fergus understands, nods a little stiffly and spares her the pain of giving it any semblance of a life with her voice.

Brianna is uncertain as to what she ought to be feeling – relief that she's not alone, or sorrow at the knowledge her brother has suffered in a way much like her. Neither sound particularly appealing.

"Aye," Fergus saves her from the need to say more, "What Bonnet did to you, Randall, he-" He swallows, pulls away from her just slightly and Brianna can see but not grasp a lingering spectre crawling up his back – the touch of another man he'd not yet escaped, a wrong done to him he carries around upon his skin and in his heart still and does not seem to know yet how to get rid of entirely. "He hurt me," He breathes, hoarse and frayed around the edges, like he cannot – or will not – spare his persecutor any more of himself than what he has already taken from him.

He raped me, is what he carefully chooses not to say, and Brianna does not need him to – does not think she would make him put words onto it against his will either, for she knows how humiliating it feels, to have someone else try to pry the details of a visceral story that belongs to her alone out of her. The years of grief etched onto the lines of Fergus' face and shaping the way he holds himself are answer enough, the echo of a lament she is well attuned to for she has been drowning in much the same agony for far too long now.

Brianna has come to learn that she's entitled to her grief, she can mourn for what she's lost, yet when she look at her brother and sees a mirror of what she's been through, an oppressive hardship he has carried around with him not for weeks but years, to the point of it being weaved into his bones and filling the cracks where this Randall fractured him, she does not think she wants such a future, does not think she has enough strength of heart to give so much of her future to Bonnet.

She is not sure she wants to, either.

"Milord and I," He is saying, hesitatingly, worries the cuff of his sleeve with his hand in an attempt to stay here with her and not go back to wherever it happened, no doubt, "We were trying to get information at Maison Élise, in Paris. I was stupid, and I wandered off – quel imbécile j'étais." He means to laugh, to Brianna, it sounds like an aborted sound of pain. "I meant to steal something for Milady, I am an excellent pickpocket after all."

He wriggles the fingers of his good hand and when she looks to him once again, the quirk of the lips they share is grim.

Brianna thinks that while she is fortunate enough to have grown up in times where she has been spared the need for a career in stealing, she still has a little experience in the art. Flowers, mostly, from the communal park back in Boston that she would swipe for Mama when Daddy wasn't looking – he would turn away, pretend not to notice what she was up to, but the little twitch at the corner of his lips as he hid his smile, he always knew. An old lady or a father of three might have been upset enough to voice their displeasure once or twice if they'd happened to catch her in the act – and, looking back on it, with good reason – but Brianna is certain they never would have been angry enough to harm her so horribly as punishment for her crime. To think anyone capable of such… She feels ill, something turn in her stomach and a twisted form of gratitude for the societal morals she was fortuitous to grow up with her brother was not so lucky to have.

"It was supposed to be quick, in and out, I should have been back before Milord even knew I was gone. Except that when I turned around, the Englishman was there, he had come back, and he thought I was-" He swallows, uneasy, thinks perhaps such a story too unbecoming for her ears and, while touched by his thoughtfulness, Brianna almost thinks of telling him he's free to say as much as he wishes for she's lived through far worse things than what his lips could utter. "He thought I was one of the garçons Madame Élise would rent out to the clients for entertainment – which I suppose I was – but I…" He shakes his head, "I didn't want what he did, and he wouldn't listen when I said no, when I begged him to stop. He wouldn't listen, he didn't care, it just… Hurt."

His hand curls around the hem of his breeches, his knuckles turn white where they worry at the fabric for a moment, and he lowers it just enough to bear her the hint of his hipbone, a stretch of pale skin marred only by a single mark. A moment passes where Brianna thinks nothing of it, until she looks closer upon noticing the faded red at the centre of a pink scar, the appearing innocence of what she thought to be nothing more than a nasty a bruise twisting into the sharp indent of ugly initials – JWR.

Brianna feels something catch in her throat at the sight of it, the little crimson letters relics of a calculated brutality she's all too well aware of sending a shiver down to the marrow of her bones. It's such a small thing – too small to be from a pole, or a rod – she has taken enough History lessons in high school to recognize the brand of a signet ring when she sees one. A ring meant someone close – far too close, suffocating, hurting (like Bonnet, like me, she thinks, bleakly), a man claiming him with his touch and ensnaring him with his name upon his skin where she still remembers the feeling of rough nails bruising her hips and the touch of his lips seared into her neck.

Grimly, she's not sure she has enough heart to think of Bonnet sparing her such permanent violence a blessing. She knows her bruises will fade eventually – and Brianna longs for the day she'll look down and find her skin to be her own again – where Fergus' will follow him forever.

"It is rather ugly, non?"

She means to say something – yes it is, for it does make for quite a horrifying sight and belies a haunting tragedy she understands oh so intimately, yet a moment passes and Brianna thinks better of it, wishes, maybe, to tell him instead that no it's not, wishes for him to know that what was done to him should not make him think lesser of himself, that he survived it despite everything. She intends to tell him so, yet when her lips part, Brianna realizes she has not the words to alleviate the wickedness carved into his flesh.

"Randall, what he did, while the pain lessened after a while, this never left me. For a long time, I thought it was a punishment, tu sais, to have dared called for Milord, to have made him fight the Englishman because it was a reminder: if I had been quieter, perhaps, or quicker, or peut-être if I did not look like what I was, then maybe he would not have hurt me like that." Her brother is strangely calm about it as he entrusts her with a story he knows she understands, an odd sense of acceptance of such a horror Brianna has not yet learnt to feel, for she has not the heart to offer such a gentle thing to someone who so mercilessly wounded her.

"Milord… Milord helped me see it wasn't my fault, and that I did not deserve what Randall did to me." He breathes around a thin smile as he covers the brand once again, effortlessly lets the past rest in a way Brianna is rather envious of. "I did not want it, and it wasn't my fault when he chose to keep hurting. I thought it was at first, when Milord was in prison and Milady was – was in l'hôpital."

Something passes over his face at the words, a profound sorrow Brianna does not understand but one she recognizes instantly, for she has seen such mourning many a lonely day gnaw at her poor mother's soul when Mama thought she wasn't looking. Brianna has not the full story of what happened – has little doubt that it is full of pain and loss and unimaginable grief – but decides to not press the issue any further for now, supposes it is a tragedy her family will perhaps consider sharing with her in time, when they feel like they can choose to. And she'll be there when they do.

"For a long time… After, I thought that maybe I did look for it," Fergus ventures, doubt and guilt and heartbreak she has breathed and lived through every day since arriving at Riverrun a hurt they seem to share, "I thought that perhaps I made Randall do it because I worked there, in the brothel. I thought that peut-être he could see what kind of garçon I was and that I was nothing more to him than something to use and hurt and discard."

Fergus' I thought sings to her If only, the echo of a doleful regret she has felt so alone in now a tragedy for her to share, both of them drowning in thoughts of what they could have done differently, their lives brought to a halt by hurts done to them.

She wishes she could put it behind her and move on with her life, and when she tries, Brianna doesn't know how.

"But, I didn't stop Bonnet, I didn't try hard enough. Like an idiot, I even went with him, how could I not be responsible for what happened after that when I was the one who put myself there?" She chokes, so angry still at how trusting she had been, furious at herself for not being smarter and seeing through the man when the signs had all been there before her.

"I don't think it matters," Fergus says, offers her absolution again for a sin Brianna does not think she can be cleansed of – she had been foolish, she had gone with him, she had made her body move so as she trailed behind him to his room - "I followed plenty of customers at Maison Élise when I was younger and pleased them the way they wanted, and none of them did to me what Randall did. Men like him, men like Bonnet, they do not care, they do not need a reason. They take and they don't listen and they hurt because ils aiment ça."

Brianna has a moment to feel sick, revulsion twisting her stomach and threatening to have her throw up what meagre meal Phaedre had managed to get her to eat last night. Her skin itches and slivers under her bruises, as she reflects upon how terrible her life is – how much worse it could have been – and does not deem now a good time to educate her brother on the nature of children and their inability to choose to partake in such acts regardless of what time they hail from. How upsetting, she thinks, that such abhorrent pain should follow their kind through the ages, that others will suffer like them because of choices they will not get to make and bear the burden of self-inflicted blame for a crime not their fault.

"I didn't want it." She murmurs to the wind, articulates for the first time as she puts words on what she thinks she now begins to understand.

If she goes back to Wilmington, Brianna now sees what she did do – she remembers pushing back, remembers screaming for help, remembers how desperately she'd pleaded as Bonnet held her there, remembers hating every moment of what followed after and the way her nails clawed at his arm, and thinks – I tried, I did what I could.

The harm done against her pains her still, her heartbeat is tender and sore when too close to the bruises upon her chest, but it is strong still and hers, and Brianna thinks that she cannot be responsible for another man's choices. Neither of them can.

Her skin is still bruised, but the patches of discoloured skin look different as she understands they are no fault of her own, and if Brianna peers hard enough – past the pain, past the flinching, past the too many unwanted touches – she thinks she can almost tell which ghosts are Roger's and which are Bonnet's – for her lover's are a gentle brush, feel warm and affectionate around her wrist and where they kiss the top of her shoulder, memories of a tender pleasure she remembers welcoming with her heart where Wilmington's had been forced upon her, her attacker, careless and hard, as he thought it his right to try and replace something so sacred.

It wasn't, never had been and never would be his privilege, and Brianna feels like she can breathe again as it dawns upon her, that only her ascent and what she may wish matters.

Roger might not be by her side right now – her heart bleeds for him still, a melancholic kind of affection Brianna cannot bring herself to part with yet, the remembrance of the love they had far too sweet a treasure for her to merely give up – yet when she feels the skin in the pit of her elbow, how warm it feels to her touch and the little flutter in her heart as she remembers how Roger's lips softly pressed butterfly kisses there at her whispered approval, Brianna thinks she can perhaps begin to pick apart what it is she'd shared with him, feels her chest tremble and something wet trickle down her cheek at the realization that it does not feel so horrible – it's actually rather nice, a hint of kindness she permitted him to deliver, and, when she reflects upon it now, her decision makes all the difference.

She had desired Roger then, and she desires him still despite the angry words they had parted with, thinks that after weeks of nothingness, she wants it all back. All her pain, her anger, her regrets and her mourning have weighed so heavily upon her soul, Brianna knows she has been little else than hurt since she's arrived here at Riverrun, and makes the decision that, from today, she can try perhaps to be more than that. She deserves to be more.

Acceptance feels bittersweet in her heart when Brianna thinks of giving it to Bonnet, for she hates offering the man more of her than he has taken so far, yet she understands that moving on without it would be impossible. She is hurt today and her bruises and pain will follow her for weeks to come – of that she has no doubt – but she knows they will leave her soon, their ugliness no longer a stain for her eyes to feast upon when she wakes up, their suffocating embrace no longer a touch she will have to bear when Brianna will get to decide what she does with herself.

For the first time since Wilmington perhaps, she feels hopeful, thinks perhaps that a day will come and she will be able to close such a dreadful chapter of her life.

"What happened to him, to the man who hurt you?" She asks Fergus, for she needs to hear it herself, that there is more to their story than merely pain and grief.

"Milord killed him on the battlefield, at Culloden. He told me he killed him himself, and he avenged us both and we never spoke of it since."

Fergus says it matter-of-factly, spares no grief for this Randall's soul for his voice is empty – Brianna thinks, momentarily, that he's undoubtedly screamed and cried his grief and his anger already, thinks perhaps Fergus has nothing left to give his scourger but this lack of any feeling whatsoever. It dawns upon her, then, that she need not spare Bonnet any more of her tears, or her fury, or anything should she not want to, for the burden of his soul, his choices and his sins is not one for her shoulders to bear, the extent of his wrongs is not an ugliness she need let darken her heart any further.

For a moment – fleeting and gone before she can truly contemplate the thought any further – Brianna entertains the notion that she'd be able to deliver justice to him herself, return him a fraction of the pain he so easily delivered upon her and kill him. Her fingers flex just a little as she imagines what it might feel like, to twist his neck and hear it snap, her heart beats louder in her breast at the thought of watching him die in front of her, her breath trembles at the thought of inflicting such a sentence upon him herself and choosing how to end his miserable life, but the weight of it all feels too heavy for her to bear. Brianna loathes him, perhaps – and with reason – but she does not think she'd be able to so callously sentence him herself.

Perhaps she wishes she were stronger, and then she thinks better of it: she is strong, very much in spite of what has been done to her and not because of it. She'd picked herself up from that tavern, she'd stood tall and chosen not to look him in the eye as she left, she'd walked out and found help and a home and a loving family – she'd been bruised and bleeding and in unimaginable pain perhaps, but she'd walked out of there, the pen to her own story in her hands. Bonnet might have hurt her, might have tried to unmake her with his hands and his lips but Brianna Fraser decides she isn't giving him this.

"No," She says, sharply, an accentuated syllable cleaving the silence. Brianna straightens as the word leaves her, draws herself back and holds herself tall as she reclaims, maybe, a shred of something she'd not been able to get past her lips that dreadful night at the Willow Tree. It feels good, as she breathes around it, to choose to give it a life of its own with her voice.

Beside her, Fergus looks back up to her, confused to say the least, "Non?"

"Like I said, no." She repeats, clearly, and feels pride blossom in her chest when her voice doesn't tremble. If she is to face Bonnet again, she likes to think she'd be able to be just as assured and look him in the eye as she denies him to his face what he wishes he could steal from her. "We aren't the ones who get to feel guilty about this. We don't get to blame ourselves and think that maybe if we'd done something differently, then maybe we would not have brought it upon ourselves."

She's given her tormentor one too many a sleepless night already, the man has taken more than he was ever entitled to, and Brianna thinks she's had enough, she'll not let him have any more.

"I've given him enough, we don't get to punish ourselves with guilt over what those men did, we don't get to shoulder the blame and think that maybe if we'd done something differently, then maybe we wouldn't have brought it upon ourselves." She says, her fingers wrapping around her bruised wrist and feeling her own skin beneath, and Brianna can almost sense something of herself coming back to her. She thinks back to what Fergus said, to how readily he'd helped her understand and absolved her and thinks that he's probably right, that neither of them are to blame for what had been done to them. "It's not our fault, sometimes people don't need a reason to hurt beyond the fact that they can. What Bonnet did to me was his choice, what Randall did to you and Da, he chose to do that, we cannot be responsible for the way they chose to act."

Something smells oddly comforting and warm in the air, as she breathes, and it is when her words have stopped ringing back to her that Brianna thinks it to be the alluring scent of fresh bread straight out of the oven. Her lips moisten at the thought of it, her outburst having left her hungry for life in a way she has not been for weeks – it feels good, to know she has not enough room to doubt herself anymore because she knows herself to be right.

For the first time since that terrible morning after the Willow Tree, the world seems to have shifted into place – just a little, for she needs Time to do its work, no doubt, and let the rest of it mend itself as she heals, before she might feel whole again – and Brianna is glad to have chosen to live.

Beside her, Fergus seems to want to argue, to doubt her assurance for he has no knowledge of what closure might feel like, and Brianna feels something ache in her breast at how fortunate she is, to come from a time where wounds of the mind and heart are tended to with the same attention and care as those of the body. He wouldn't know anything about notions of a wounded psyche or gross stress reaction, would he? She thinks, a little bitter perhaps at how reticent their kind seems to be to offer healing and closure to those whose hearts have suffered so.

"I…" She swallows, needs a moment to make her decision and let the words form upon her tongue. They weigh heavy upon her, in the silence, a choice she knows she must make, a sentence she must swing for herself if she is to move forward, but with a steady beat in her heart and a little hope in her lungs, Brianna feels brave enough to utter them at last, "I can accept what he did to me, I cannot change that, I know that now. What he did to me hurt, it happened, but…" She breathes, lets the suffocating feeling of Bonnet and his horrors around her go, embraces what she chooses to do with herself instead, "But there are things I still do have, things that are mine, things that Steven Bonnet can never take from me. My forgiveness is still mine to give, and I do not have to give it to him. I'm not."

It sits there, a gentle thing in the palm of her hands, hers and hers alone. Brianna thinks to how she'd picked herself up from the floor of that room, to how she'd held her head high as she'd walked out as people gawked and stared at her sorry state, thinks to how she's made it here and thinks to how she can – and will – build herself up again. Her choice to withhold Bonnet her grace may be small, perhaps – insignificant a thing at first glance, no doubt – but she hopes it to be one thing in a line of many she gets to keep for herself, a small step into becoming something more than the marks he left upon her that night.

A cathartic thought it may be, it does not stop Brianna from feeling it tainted with bitterness, when she looks to Fergus again. There is an ache left in her chest – no longer an emptiness left because of Bonnet's careless theft, but one borne out of mourning, grief at how this tragedy they share and the scars they both bare from it has brought them to an understanding, of sorts. Brianna wishes they'd met in better circumstances, thinks, a little wistful, that they might have had their parents truly changed the course of History and had Culloden never happened. She can see it reflected in his eyes – downcast, pensive, brow low and reminiscing over past pains – how they both take a moment to bid farewell to a piece of them taken too early, the men responsible having – and who would, soon – take it to their graves.

Brianna thinks she can accept it now, feels like she can make peace with what Bonnet has done to her, and for the first time since that dreadful morning, does not feel like she wants to curl up in a hole and die. Her chest feels lighter, as the burden of his soul begins to lift, yet Brianna catches on to the edges of it before it escapes her entirely. By all accounts, she probably should let it go, she probably ought not to let such an ugly thing fester in her soul, poison her heart with cravings for vicious revenge and bloody murder and worry her mind any more than it already has, yet the thought of simply doing nothing, of him leaving her and the terrible knowledge that Bonnet would have had the final word in the matter do not sit well with her. She'll not give him this.

"I want him to face justice. I want him to know he's not going to get away with what he did to me because I'm not going to let him." She tells Fergus instead, thinks she's let Bonnet write too much of her story already for her to let him continue to so carelessly spill her ink any further. Distantly, Brianna thinks that if his arrest might spare another unfortunate soul her plight, then it may not only be her desire, but her obligation, to see his comeuppance carried out to its just conclusion and show her hopeless brethren that such terrible deeds are, indeed, deserving punishment and that such men ought not to think so trivially of the people they so recklessly hurt.

Through it all, Brianna spares a thought for her father, feels wounded at the thought of not heeding his words and upsetting him so, but thinks that, beneath it all, this is not a foolish and vitriolic quest for revenge and retribution she wishes to embark upon. This is not a question of darkening her soul, of going down a path she cannot come back from and condemning herself to eternal damnation with actions unbecoming of who she is at heart, this is about reclaiming her quill, feeling how the pen still fits in her fingers as she dips it in ink and choosing the next words of her tale herself.

"I know Da has asked me not to, he wrote me a letter, wrote the words down in ink himself. I know he means well, that he wants to look out for me, but," She swallows, the sting of betrayal one she feels wound her healing heart nonetheless, "He doesn't know what it's like. He got his revenge, he fought on the battlefield and he got back that piece of him Randall stole when he killed him. He doesn't know what it's like, to have to live with that emptiness, to watch your story be written by someone else who would rather spare your hand than see it taint itself just a little. I understand what he wishes for, but I'm not his broken property, if Da reclaims that piece Bonnet stole from me, I can't be the one to do it, and-"

"It should be your choice."

Brianna feels something uncoil around her chest as relief gently coats her bones, for finally, someone at last understands her, does not seek to perpetuate further violence on her behalf and other well-meaning gestures she has grown weary of. "Yes," She says, hastily, sinks her teeth into her brother's compassion and claws at it until she's certain it will not leave her, for it is too comforting a gift to let go of after weeks of loneliness and one too many misconception about her person. "I think, if I can see it done – not the swinging of the sentence, I do not wish to watch him die – but just seeing Bonnet behind bars, see it for myself, the moment it is decreed that he cannot hurt anyone anymore, maybe I can find peace. Then, I'll just have to figure out a way to heal."

The mere thought of bearing witness to his sentence's execution – to watch him die – fills her with dead, Brianna knows she will feel no pleasure as her tormentor will face the ultimate punishment, yet it is a feeling that bears little upon her then, when compared to the sweet sweet relief at the prospects of a life free of him, the touch of his tenacious little ghosts and the constant crippling fear that consumes her at the thought of the pirate striking again. In those moments, his death seems such a little price to pay if it is what must be done to seal her reclamation of her own soul.

So consumed with thoughts of Bonnet, the pain he imparted upon her and worry at what fate awaited him, Brianna has not even considered what life might be like for her after this is all over, and yet, now that she has lifted the heavy burden the pirate wounded her with, she is left at quite a loss – for what is to become of her now? How is she to go back to being who she was after what happened? It had been so easy to say, mere moments ago, it had seemed so simple to her then, to lash out and choose not to be what that man had desired to turn her into, and in the silence that follows, she is left at a loss, for how did one be more than the pain imparted upon them?

"I want to get better," She tells Fergus again, perhaps reminds herself also that she deserves this, that she wants this still, despite how awfully difficult a freedom it seems for her to reach right then. Brianna wants a day to come where she will be all right again, tells herself that, surely, even this darkness must pass eventually. "I know I'm going to hate it, I know it's not going to be easy, and it's really not looking very good right now, but…" She swallows, rubs the inside of her wrist and thinks that just maybe she can feel Roger's ghost here with her too, the spectre of his tenderness a gentle encouragement for her to look forward, for better days are to come, "I think, for myself, I'd like to try. At least attempt to figure out a place to start, you know?"

Fergus lets the words hang between them for a moment, and Brianna can see how he thinks carefully of what he wishes to say next. He furrows his brow and bites his lip and beside him, his fingers rub against one another as she sees him trying to cover the cracks and understands, now, that it is unfortunately not a catharsis she will achieve in a few days alone. As saddening a realisation it is, she thinks she can acknowledge now, that much like her brother, she must take her time, that she now has the rest of her life to heal properly and tend to her wounds with care and tenderness and not haste and the sublime illusion of healing she's recently longed for.

"There were times I thought healing was such rotten work, tu sais?" He says, grimacing, recalls no doubt much of the same skin-crawling memories she's currently trying to overcome and as grim a thought as it may be, Brianna takes comfort in the knowledge that she's not the only one to have had a rocky road to recovery, that this seemingly Herculean task and how difficult it seems to her now to overcome is not a hardship she is facing alone. "There were often moments, at first but sometimes now too, still, when Marsali and Randall felt the same, when I couldn't let her touch me because all I could remember was him. And I hated it, I hated myself for not being able to tell them apart because I know Marsali would never do that to me."

He says it with such conviction, with such heart, like Fergus knows deep down in the marrow of his bones that she'd never hurt him, and Brianna thinks – of course she wouldn't, she loves him. Like her, like her and Roger – Roger loved – loves – her too, still, wherever he must be out there, all alone. Brianna has faith that the affection they share is still alight in his breast, still burns for her like she aches for him, and it is a comforting thought to have, to know she can look forward to having his heart when she'll need it when he comes back to her.

"I was so angry", He says, remorse heavy in his voice and a thousand unspoken apologies in his eyes Brianna has no doubt his wife has heard already, "At Marsali, at Randall, at myself for not being able to tell them apart when I know they are not the same people. Sometimes, I thought I'd never be able to feel the differences when the memory of what he did to me hurt too much. But," He shivers, and Brianna doesn't hate it when she leans into him just enough for their shoulders to touch, offers him a fraction of the comfort he has brought her this morning and thinks to how glad she is, that she's travelled back, that this family they have is hers now, also. Fergus acknowledges her empathy, brings his hand to offer her back the same comfort and as she looks down at the pair they make – the painted cracks they weave as his wooden hand rests a moment against the bruises upon her delicate clavicles, she understands that there are parts of themselves they might never get back, but the pieces of them they have buried along the way ought not to seal their story so soon. Life could be more to them than the suffering they have both endured, "But I learnt that nobody is entitled to me, not even Marsali. I get to choose how much of myself I share, and what Marsali and I have – what we choose to have ensemble – it's worth the occasional discomfort. Healing might feel like it's terrible, and il y a des jours où I still want to crawl into a hole and tear that brand off, burn everywhere I remember him touching and wish none of it ever happened, but those days are thankfully few and far between."

Brianna feels something gentle settle in her heart as she think she can now look forward to the softness of better days, does not seek to escape Fergus' gaze when his eyes catch hers and he offers her a heartfelt confession, "Healing might often feel like it's downright rotten work, like it's too difficult, like it's not worth it, and there are times I still feel like giving up, but it's not. Not if it's for me, not if it's for you."

Brianna thinks she understands it now, as she nods, gentle hope curdling deep in her stomach at the thought of something better to come. If her shoulders happen to shiver, she likes to think it's merely from the soft morning breeze kissing her skin where it slithers in through the folds of her shirt – a little unpleasant perhaps, but not horrible. She brings her hand to her sides, lets her fingers rest a moment over the thin fabric there and feels her ribs just beneath as they move with her every breath, a little tender still but wholly hers and the thought of touching them does not fill her with dread. She feels something heavy in her throat as she acknowledges herself, and does not let her hand linger, does not seek to force something that will come back to her in time – thinks that what she can manage so far is probably good enough – and thinks that, one day when she is fully herself again, perhaps she could let Roger touch her there too.

It is still not an easy intimacy to imagine, and Brianna thinks that rescuing the ghost of what her fiancé feels like from Bonnet will no doubt be a long journey, but for herself, for Roger and her and what they are and will be together, she thinks it might be worth it.

"Does that mean that me and Roger, perhaps one day, we could-?" She asks Fergus, sees how unblemished his skin looks, sees how years of work have perfected his recovery and how easily he lets her take hold of him and thinks she'd like that for herself too.

"Probablement", He tells her, smiles like it's an evidence, a reclaimed assurance she has seen sported by her father also, one Brianna knows to be the fruit of years of labour as they put themselves back together. Little steps, she tells herself, for it is little by little, that one travels far, and if, today, leaning into Fergus just enough for her to feel the hint of him is all she can bear, it is something she can take pride in. With Fergus' reassurance a gentle balm upon her soul, piecing herself back together does not seem such a dreadful hardship anymore, for it is not an if but a when – shaking and unsteady for now, but one Brianna can work on from today and soon hope to reach with the tips of her fingers. "If you and Roger still want each other, then you're already half way there."

He chuckles, and Brianna feels something light in her chest as she finds herself joining in. The sound of her voice does not ring ugly to her ears, the rough edges and hoarse quality to it she's grown accustomed to as she'd let herself wallow in her pain have made themselves scarce, right then, as she gives voice to a first little bit of found joy through the darkness. Happiness is a rather enticing feeling, she thinks, as she feels it brush her fingers and tentatively coat her heart, tending to the cracks Bonnet left behind with something he managed not to take from her for this feeling comes from who she is at her core, her body is left abuzz, cleansed and hers in a way too many a scalding bath or a sleepless night keeping the nightmares at bay have not, a smooth balm for such a jagged-edged hurt. Her laughter rings around her, soon joins the early chirping of the little birds in their nests and the song of the gentle breeze through the branches, draws her in to the here and now and gives her a place to be nothing more than fully be.

There is a quiet kind of strength she feels run through them both as they allow themselves such fragile levity, Brianna thinks as she holds on to something else Bonnet managed not to take from her. Her happiness is hers, always has been and always would be, and she is glad to selfishly withhold it from him, laugh in his face and cherish how such an euphoric feeling strengthens her bones and moves her heart.

Perhaps, she thinks after a moment, she needed this, as she nods to Fergus. The sharp ends of words of revenge and the hidden violence lacing her father's tongue as he sought to release his anger upon a man who harmed her so, while very much needed, seem such brittle recovery when Brianna compares them to the way her heart feels light in her chest, as it flutters with newfound hope and the knowledge that she is more. She resents him not any longer, hates not how terribly he'd lashed out in that cabin with brusque gestures and promises of painful retribution, knows now that he'd simply not been able to understand her like Fergus does for the kind of opportunistic violence that had been wrought upon them is one her father has been blessedly spared.

"Do you still think about it?" She asks Fergus, appreciates this secluded little sanctuary he's helped her build and the newfound understanding she's gained of her situation, but as she watches the early signs of life rouse around Aunt Jocasta's garden, she knows their privacy will not last. Soon, a new day will start, and Brianna can already feel her shoulders stiffen at the thought of bearing yet more uninvited looks – she can accept them too, now, she thinks, knows they probably mean her no harm, are instead a compassion those people know not how to put into words for her and chooses to think that perhaps, she could accept their sympathy. Perhaps, Brianna considers, if she holds her head high and decides to shake Lieutenant Wolf's hand at dinner tonight, maybe they'll see her for what she wants them to see instead of the ugly broken toy a stranger had tried to make her.

"Sometimes," He shrugs, accepts it as part of this journey they've both embarked upon and Brianna does not think it such a difficult thing to welcome now that she's worked through her lack of fault in the matter, "And I think it's all right. I hate it, mind you, I hate that I weep over it still, but not all tears are an evil tu sais. Sometimes," He says, thumb brushing his wrist, soothing an emptiness where soft skin meets hard wood, and Brianna has little doubt that it is another pain for which he's cried many times over in his short life, would not begrudge him such grief either, "I think it's all right to be hurt, we have to allow ourselves a little sorrow over what happened to us. You can shed tears over what he took, it does not take anything away from the fact that you and I," He looks back up to her then and makes sure they meet eye to eye, brother to sister, one martyr to another, "We survived."

"The grief is just a reminder, our hearts still work, we are still humane despite what was done to us." Brianna infers for them both, finds solace in how she has overcome her pain and chosen to mourn instead of let it consume her and feast upon her humanity until there might be nothing left of her but a vengeful monster she does not wish to become. She thinks, a little spitefully perhaps, that gifting herself the tenderness of her own compassion takes far more strength than Bonnet can ever hope to have. Upon her cheek the tears she has shed have dried, and where they once stung with how unsteady things have been for her, the world now begins to right itself again, just a little.

"I know how the saying goes, that the past doesn't rest easy," She says as she feels her bruises slither and move upon her skin still and an ache in her bones many a night will have to chase away, knows they will be companions of hers for a while to come still and that once they will fade, Brianna will not need to let them change who she is. Bonnet's ghost and the memory of what he did, however, is not a mark written upon her skin but a wound she carries in her heart and mind, knows from her mother's work that such hurts can oft times be more persistent, "But do you think he'll ever go away? I was just hoping, you know, that in time he would…"

"We deserve better than what those men did to us," Fergus says, perhaps for them both, prompts them to remember that they bear no guilt in what happened to them, that life has more to offer them than wasting away over laments to past pains. Brianna knows better than most that, while a noble venture it might appear to be, a never-ending quest to change the past yields oft little more than remorse and heartbreak, and does not wish to live a life wasted, "I have to believe we deserve a gentler end to our stories than being haunted by monsters. So, most days, I choose to let him go, I don't give Randall what he wants."

"At least he's dead, he can't hurt anyone anymore."

"Aye, c'est vrai." Fergus concedes, understands her probably too for Da told her Randall died on the battlefield at Culloden, long after her parents' time in Paris, years and not weeks after harming her brother so unforgivably. "And Bonnet will die soon aussi, in a cell, after he's been caught and judged. And you can write your own story to get there, and then after."

Brianna thinks that she would like that. She's not sure what, exactly, she would write for herself yet, but she cannot deny that the feeling of he quill in her hand and the knowledge that she gets to choose the words of her own story from now on feels powerful. I don't get to feel bad about myself, I don't get to feel guilty, she reminds herself as she writes down her first decision, and chooses to fight back perhaps not with her first but with what she knows she can use against Bonnet instead: her heart and soul and her family.

"Then, what do you say we both try to get closure?" She asks him, does not wish to walk this path alone when help is freely offered to her and there for the taking. After so much solitude and regret gnawing at the very fabric of her heart, a hint of understanding company seems like a sweet reward for her suffering, and Brianna is not fool enough to think she'd be able to see to the pirate's capture herself. Smart she may be – she is not shy of taking pride in having attended university, and if she'd been asked to repair a car engine or pick apart the components of her family's little TV, she would have no problem – it is simply that her knowledge seems, all of a sudden, to fall short of understanding eighteenth-century smugglers and their schemes. While her body might be something for her to reclaim alone, Brianna is forced to recognize that Bonnet is not a man she can chase after herself.

She puts the offer on the table, knows it's what is for the best, but will not force her brother's hand, for this is not a choice she can impart upon him.

"You… You would want me?" He asks her, something shimmering in his eyes as he understands what it is she is asking of him and does not miss the way his fingers worry around his wooden wrist, thinks that it matters very little to her in the grand scheme of things. So what if he is missing a hand? – So what, if Bonnet had hurt her? So what, if they might have lost a few pieces of themselves along the way? – they were still them, a few cracks here and there no doubt, but just as capable as anybody else. Others might think them damaged goods, others might see them as needing protection and too frail to fight for their own justice, but Brianna thinks that there is no justice in the world – at least, not in this time, not for them, not for the kind of pain they have been subjected to – not unless they make it themselves.

"If you would like to help me, I think I'll take anything I can get." She tells Fergus, chooses say nothing about the emptiness at his wrist for it one that needs no words – her brother is whole, still, and she would not have him any other way, needs someone who understands her by her side to see this through. "I'm a smart cookie, but there are things even I don't know. I'm no smuggling mastermind, I'm not like Bonnet, and I think that someone to have my back, someone to stand by me, well that would be nice."

"Milord taught me well, in Edinburgh, I have a little knowledge in how to find someone who does not wish to be found. We're good smugglers, tu sais, and with Murtagh and his regulators, we could surely ask them for help, I know he would. If you want it, of course."

"I think…" She begins to say, trails off for she is not certain for a moment. After weeks of deaf ears and bitter heartbreak as, each day, the hope of her parents coming home waned as the sun went down, Brianna finally has an unconditional lifeline given to her with her brother's visit. She is grateful – beyond words, beyond anything she can possibly express to him for what it is he has helped her understand and accept, for helping her get back this first piece of many and for simply being there with a listening ear where so many others could not. She does not begrudge their misunderstanding like she does not begrudge her parents – hopes they, too, will come home to her soon, with Roger – and around her, the word seems less ugly when she looks out to it once again. In the corner of her eye, the lightest cracks have begun to stitch themselves together at the edges, ugly suture points she understands are necessary and knows will go away in time.

Time is what they need after all, is it not? Time for Roger and Mama and Da to come home, time for justice to do it's course, time for her to patiently piece herself back together again.

Time is something Brianna has, still, something she can feel running through her fingers, a gentle intangible she can almost feel gently kissing her skin, something she knows to be hers and something she knows Bonnet can never take away from her. It would be a shame to let it pass and not choose to do anything with it, she thinks.

"I think," She decides, then, "That I would like to have my brother there with me, just in case. You said Da killed him, the man who hurt you, you never saw it done for yourself. I know Bonnet isn't the same person, but I thought, perhaps seeing someone like him get his comeuppance might help you and I find closure too." She ventures, would not dare put words onto what Fergus might feel for she knows it is not her place, but thinks extending her compassion and understanding to him might be something he can appreciate. "If we can both find peace, I thought maybe…"

His wooden hand on her own is answer enough.

They sit there, alive, safe and whole, a comforting knowledge Brianna feels weighs heavily upon her fragile heart. Her remorse and guilt have left her, ugly things she understands she need not burden herself any further with anymore, yet her shoulders are leaden with exhaustion, weeks of worry and unrest finally catching up to her now that she has given herself a moment to breathe. She decides she can spare a moment for them to rest, knows she can afford herself a little lenience and tenderness, lets them slump and curve inelegantly – far from anything Aunt Jocasta and her polite society would deem appropriate, Brianna knows, but cares little for – and her brittle bones cry out in relief as she grants them this small mercy. She bends, for a while, and knows that she'll pick herself up.

In front of her, the world tilts just a little when Brianna leans in to her brother. It is not scary, for around her, everything still feels just and right, her heart does not skip a beat nor does she find herself suspended in time, unsure how to make sense of it all. She is here, alive and well, knows it will right itself when she chooses to rise up – she will, in time, but wishes, for a moment, to indulge in this small comfort first. She does not think twice before she feels them brush, shoulder to shoulder, the gentle ruffle of fabric a sound that is oddly sharp to her ears in the peace she has found. It is not unpleasant to her, just – fairly ordinary, real.

Beside her, Fergus is warm, a mellow balm on her soul. When he looks to her again, Brianna no longer feels apprehension turn her blood to ice, a familiar compassion coats her body instead, a touch she welcomes and chooses to embrace.

"You can… If you want." He offers her as he shrugs his shoulder just slightly, and Brianna must confess that it is true, it does like quite an inviting suggestion, boasts of a comfort she has long ached for and promises of a safe place for her to lie for a moment if she so desires. "If you wish perchance to rest for a while, I'll be here when you wake up."

She has no appetite for sleep – tired she may be, but the world appears just a little less ugly to her today and Brianna is loath to let such hint of an alluring painting go to waste. Her eyes water and burn, bitter consequence of too many a sleepless night keeping the remembrance of past horrors at bay, but a moment to grant them mercy does seem to be a little concession she can offer herself, a hint of care Brianna knows she must learn to gift back to her own person if she wants to heal – and she does, truly.

And, if she is being painfully honest with herself, Fergus doesn't make for a bad pillow, all things considered.

"Thank you." She mumbles into the collar of his shirt, her heart touched, her body safe.

The soft skin of her cheek stings still, just a little, where her tears have dried, but she has not the heart to wipe them away. It is but a benign discomfort, one not too heavy for her heart to bear right then for it is soon forgotten when Brianna looks out to the fields ahead of them, to the golden glint of the daffodils kissed by the morning sun as they dance in a gust of breeze and the smooth blending of forest greens and rich browns of the copse of trees protecting the edge of her aunt's property. It looks not unlike the hints of a Turner painting, the world bright and clear and not entirely unpleasant to look at, a realization that sends hopeful elation tingling in her fingers where they wrap around her brother's hand – Fergus says nothing, gives her this, unconditional, and Brianna truly appreciates it – and around them, the world does not look quite so ugly anymore.

It is not beautiful, far from it, but Brianna has hope that it might be, soon. She thinks she'd like to learn how to see something pretty in it again – she has an artist's touch, after all, Aunt Jocasta said so herself, recalled to her with fondness how alike she is to her dear Ellen. Brianna is not alone, never has been – and if she cannot, then she decides she'll be the architect of her own healing, learn to make it sumptuous herself instead.

Brianna has time, her skin tingles still with how it feels in the palm of her hand, and thinks it can wait for a while. Let her live and be, for now, take a moment to be nothing more than bask in the knowledge that she is whole. She lets her eyes flutter closed, the darkness no longer an empty chasm she need apprehend for it appears not so daunting to her anymore, and just – breathes, something slow and measured, in and out as she feels it all, and as she lets her shoulders fall with a contented exhale, they feel a little less burdened to her. Around her, the air tastes of something she decides to call freedom.

In the tendermost of her chest, her heart beats just a little stronger when Brianna feels her lips part in a tentative smile.