Day 3 - "Who did this to you?", Marsali and Fergus
TW: pretty heavy references to Marsali's unhappy childhood and mentions of what Fergus went through with Randall
The sharp sting of coarse language is nothing new to her, Marsali thinks, remembers with a shiver running down the length of her arm, how it imprinted upon the skin of a girl no older than ten in a household in Scotland that had never quite been a home. She likes to consider it as a family legacy, of sorts, a thing that comes to mind when she thinks of stone walls, the bitterness in her Mother's voice when she swore, and a life weaving between the shadows of a drunken man's temper.
It's not something she's ever truly parted with either, she reflects, for Jamie is known to swear like a sailor, and Fergus… Well they have lived a married life together for a couple of years now and Marsali knows all too well of his rather exhaustive directory of profanities their children are distressingly eager to try out upon their little tongues when she hears Germain teach words he ought not to to little Jemmy with far too much enthusiasm. Marsali doesn't mind, not truly, she has simply made a point of it being a language she herself seldom uses.
It is probably why it burns her tongue still, hours later, the remembrance of how the broken sound upon her lips felt wrong and dissonant, a rather ugly thing for her to bring into the sanctity of her home. She'd had to, she tries to justify to herself as she busies herself drying the last of the dishes Fergus passes to her, the ceramic plate cold in her hand, roughened somewhat, when her finger catches in one of its chipped edges. They'll have to change it sometime soon, lest Félicité inadvertently cut herself on it.
Helping Claire in her surgery truly has been a blessing, a calling Marsali has come to learn to love, and so she tries not to attribute her ire to any malice in the woman's voice when she'd caught sight of the inside of her wrist as Marsali had changed a bandage on her hand – ever quick to comment on the scarring laid bare before her eyes she still harbours upon her flesh – and had had the nerve to suggest that Fergus, of all people, might be responsible for it being there at all.
"And te think she'd be daft enough te insult ye like that with such wicked accusations!" She says, haughtily, holds her head high and juts her chin out just enough to be intimidating, looks her husband in the eye and dares him to try and find any sound reasoning to it.
"Marsali, I'm sure she did not mean it like that, she wouldn't know. Perhaps," Fergus says – surprisingly quiet and seeking not for them to argue as he finishes drying the last of the forks, for it seems like he takes no visceral offence to the lies spread about his person like she does – there is a tired and apologetic note in his voice and in the crease of his brow, "Perhaps she has not been so fortunate in life, maybe she does not know anything else."
And Marsali must confess, a tender ache in her chest as she is quick to understand the implications he deems better left unsaid, that his reasoning does makes sense. Fergus is smart, like that.
"Aye", She concedes with a sigh, lets her indignation slip from her fingers and feels something heavy in her heart as she acknowledges that perhaps the other woman might have had her reasons after all, ones Marsali remembers still, despite freeing herself from such a miserable existence a number of years ago now. Yet when she feels the accusation in her heart, thinks of anyone spreading such lies about her husband with utter conviction in their voice, it still justifies it not, "But still, I dinna think it right fer her te be sayin' such slander about ye'."
Fergus says nothing for a moment, merely dries his hand and when he sets the cloth down upon the table, Marsali notices him eying her arm where she knows her sleeve to be hiding an ugly scar. It's not one she's ever really cared to share, and it is not a story Fergus has ever asked about either – Marsali knows she has been rather clipped about her upbringing, knows Fergus to be aware of her mother, Joanie and perhaps Balriggin, but little else of the existence she's had within the walls of that house and blesses him for not trying to pry any further.
Marsali knows he's curious – it is after all rather difficult to miss the arch in his brow or the glint in his eye as he looks to where she worries at her wrist, a silent question he has never truly dared to ask aloud.
"But you are, you're hurt there, non?" He says it more like an unseen evidence than an inquiry but is kind enough to formulate it like a question nonetheless, for Marsali recognizes an escape when she sees one. She could deny it, could lie to his face and give him a different story entirely should she so choose – and she knows Fergus would be kind enough to let her get away with it also – yet the thought of deceiving him so leaves a bitter taste upon her tongue, when she remembers, a nostalgic kind of fondness in her heart, the promises they'd shared on the night they'd wed, honesty and heart all he'd ever asked of her. Her truth might be repellent, and the thought of this breaking her to him just enough that Fergus might not care to tend to the little pieces left behind pains her when Marsali considers it, but the lure of a burden shared, of entrusting her hurt into his caring hands and the promise of having someone to share her pain with does seem rather enticing to her then, when Marsali weighs them against a lifetime of having to care for this wound alone.
"Humans are funny creatures, ye ken?" She says eventually, ventures aloud considerations she and Claire have mulled over many a time in the sanctity of her surgery, "We tend te have this bad habit of remembering hurts done te us, and of no' forgetting those who harmed us." She says quietly, eyes the cuff of her sleeve – it's dirty and torn a little at the edge, and Marsali knows she'll probably have to sew it sometime soon, lest it might tear – and feels the way her skin slivers and shifts just beneath where old bruises and scars of another lifetime begin to ache anew. She feels it acutely, in the way they move where flesh is tender still, and all of a sudden, it's like he never died at all, like he'd just hit her across the face and made sure she could not flee anywhere with his hand around her wrist, like she'd never left any of that part of herself behind in Scotland.
Since making a home for themselves on the Ridge, Marsali is disheartened to note that Claire and she have tended to one too many a woman who has shared her story of hardship, knows now, that such hurts take time to heal (for the lucky few, it's a couple of months, but Marsali has cared for older women too, their years of suffering marked into the fine lines upon their now-fragile skin as they try to work their way through it still), their past suffering still encroaching upon their lives as free women. She'd merely thought it had all been sealed away with a marriage in Jamaica, a kind husband and the most wonderful children she could have ever prayed for.
She has gotten better, she thinks, for coarse language and loud voices no longer make her flinch like they had, once upon a time, and Fergus and the people of the Ridge have gifted her kindness and patience, virtues Marsali has come to truly appreciate when she compares them to a girlhood whose roots lie somewhere between bruised cheeks in retribution to her self-determination and split lips attempting to curb the sharp tongue of a young girl with no childhood. If anything, Fergus had told her countless times already that her fierce temper, her quick wit and her self-assurance are traits to be admired, ones she ought to take pride in – and Marsali does, it's just that on some days when the ghost of a fatherly touch that had been anything but gentle brushes her shoulders and hardens her heart once again, she wonders if she'll ever be permitted to be anything more than that scared and insecure little girl who had died on the coast of Scotland.
She worries at the thought of bringing such a grotesque childhood into the sanctity of their home, thinks, at times, that surely if it happened to her and shaped her into the woman she is today, then it is bound to bleed into her life now because of her also. The thought of tainting Germain and Joanie so makes her weep.
"Tis because I remember how it hurt, and 'tis ugly." She supposes, hates the hint of a quiver in her voice and loathes with an ardent fire in her heart how a ghost can make her feel so years after they have ceased to be.
Fergus hears it all, but says nothing, merely leans down and Marsali feels something catching her throat and a painful ache bloom in her breast when she feels his lips brush her tainted skin with a delicate reverence such hurts ought never to deserve.
"Ye shouldna-" She tries to say around a newfound sensitivity in her heart, the words difficult to say aloud when her throat hurts so much. She does not think Fergus' tenderness should ever touch the relics of someone who harmed her so, the gentleness of his gesture a thing she cannot reconcile with the ruthless birth of the marks she bears. They have only ever been painful – seeds of a closed fist or the cold kiss of a glass bottle, her scars have blossomed into twisted flowers upon her skin, and when she looks upon them, Marsali can only ever think of a fractured family she'd once wished whole. The years have gone, and they have ceased to cause her pain when she moves, perhaps, but to think of them with anything other than utter revulsion and shame is incomprehensible to her, and so she can do little else but sit there, frozen, and watch with a twisted heart as Fergus tries to speak to her in a language too soft for her suffering to understand.
"We also remember those who were kind to us." Is all he says, like it matters not to him that she might be a stain upon his family, when Marsali knows how perfect the Frasers look to the world.
"But they're ugly, they are no' things te be loved, Fergus."
"If you cannot love them, then maybe I can love them for you?" He asks her gently, thinks perhaps that the softness of his sentiment could somehow make them less hideous to her. Marsali feels the thin threads of her heart give away at the offer, something stings a little as tears gather in the corner of her eyes and threaten to undo everything she thinks she knows about the nature of human kindness and distantly, she wonders if somewhere entangled in the repulsive story she has written upon her skin, there might actually be a part of herself worthy of his affections at all.
"Who did this to you?" She barely hears it over the sound of her own heartbeat, for Fergus' question is small, but she feels how upset he is where his fingers tighten just a little around her wrist – it's not painful, not really, Marsali would call it touching – knows without having to look upon the distressed lines of his face that he'd fight a thousand monsters for her, crippled and one-handed and his love for her weapon enough.
"My da." She says simply, and has long ago ceased to let any love coat his name when it passes her lips. "I hate him fer it, and I hate that I hate him."
"You do not think you should?" He asks her, something bright in his eyes and not a hint of condemnation in his question for a man Marsali knows she should feel a sliver of affection for.
"I mean," She says guilt a heavy stain upon her voice – Marsali tries not to think about how unlike her it sounds, and tries to ignore the little voice in the back of her head that insists she'll never be anything but that broken little girl from a fractured home who could never hope to be anything whole or loveable. "At least I had one, ye ken? You… Ye had nobody, at least not until Jamie. By all accounts, I should be grateful fer a father who made sure we didna starve te death and who kept a roof over our heads-"
"Marsali," Fergus stops any further justifications she may come up with, a kind edge to her name he has only ever spoken aloud with love, "I've not been whole for years, and despite the ugliness I carry still, Milord and Milady have never given up on me."
"I dinna care about yer hand, Fergus, and neither do they, ye ken tha-" And perhaps her voice is a little terse, for Marsali does not think it can truly compare. Jamie and Claire have only ever loved him – missing hand and all – and while they do not talk of it often, Marsali knows enough of the story behind his injury: love for Jamie, for a father who'd given him a home, a name and unconditional love and an act of foolish courage in the face of men who would have done him harm. The phantom limb Fergus has sported since his teenage years is a legacy of bravery, not cowardice and a weak little girl's craving for fatherly affection that would never come to be.
Except that Fergus denies her her frustration also, for he tells her than that "I'm not talking about my hand."
There is a tremor in his voice and it sends something ugly and suffocating crawling down Marsali's spine. Fergus spares her a glance in the heartbeat they share, before she follows the movement of his hand as it haltingly travels down the length of his side, rests for a moment upon the hem of his breeches and she hears it the moment his breath catches as he struggles to lower the fabric further. Marsali lets him do so as he bears himself just enough to expose the bone of his hip and a thin strip of skin, and really she does not think much of it at first, for bruises and scrapes and little injuries have become somewhat of a daily occurrence for her since Claire has had the grace to give her a place in the sanctity of her surgery. Not until Fergus twists himself just slightly and she catches the faded crimson of a once grisly scar upon a pale stretch of skin.
"Ye told me that was from an accident at the forge, with wee Rabbie. Ye tripped on a stray boot and hit Jenny's farming tools, did ye no'?" She says uneasily, a bitter taste upon her tongue as, in her heart, a gentle wave of pain laps at its tendermost parts at the understanding that Fergus might have lied about it. It doesn't feel quite like betrayal, it stings not so terribly, but Marsali cannot deny it hurts, somewhat, to know he may have wished to keep something from her simply in an attempt to spare her feelings – she is not so brittle as to let a couple of words unmake her.
She tries not to think about that little part within herself that scolds her for never thinking there might have been another story hidden beneath, an sordid truth far more unpleasant.
"I lied." Fergus says, guilt he need not put into words, for Marsali feels it bleed from his fingers where they touch, still.
"And I'm sorry that I lied. I just… Did not know how to tell you." He tells her, his remorse palpable and unpleasant where it lies, an undesired gift bestowed at the altar of her feet. She says nothing however, merely gives her ascent for him to continue when he looks to her for approval once again, eager for her consent to be granted a story she might come to regret.
"I told you Milord rescued me from a brothel?" Marsali nods, something acrid burning the back of her throat as a worrying kind of certainty coats the soft flesh of her heart, for she likes not the implied path Fergus' words take her along – it is long and contorted, she cannot see around the dent of every bend ahead of her and at her feet, the sombre crevices of a life she has been spared grapple at her heels, all too eager to consume her too.
Somewhere, Marsali thinks she has always known – it's not like brothels lack in Scotland, and she's heard enough bawdy tales from the lads back at Lallybroch to garner she may never wish to step a foot inside such an establishment – it's just that in her mind, despite hailing from them and the life they entail, Fergus has always managed to be somewhat separate from such houses of ill repute.
Upon her skin dance faded bruises she thought had died long ago, and scars once upon a time laid to rest ache anew with an understanding she wishes, all of a sudden, she did not have, and Marsali scorns again a father who had gifted her too much knowledge of how unforgiving the world could be before she ought to have known of it at all.
"A long time ago, there… There was an Englishman, his name was Randall."
There is a tremor in his voice as he says it, Fergus sounds unsure and lacks the assurance she has always known him to sport as he breaks upon a name she's only ever heard whispered in the darkened halls of Lallybroch, and Marsali wonders if it is, perhaps, because he has only ever been able to utter it brokenly. Something ugly curdles in the pits of her stomach for she recognizes a hint of familiarity in the tone of his voice for it is one she has heard already, when Jamie would evade her little sister's innocent question when the light of the hearth happened to catch the scars on his back, a story of suffering too intimate to ever be shared aloud with two little girls.
Marsali has grown much since then, has seen the world and the unseemly kind of hurts it so yearns to offer them, knows enough now about Jamie, about Wentworth and about the nature of the horrors the English monster left behind that night to let the silence speak for itself, and something akin to bile rises, unbidden, in her throat at the thought of the same beast harming her husband also.
"He didn't care when I begged him to stop, instead, he gave me this to remember him by." Fergus says, eyeing the mark upon his hip Marsali understands now to be the remnants of a brand, the Englishman cruel enough to foist upon him the burden of his name for the rest of his life where her skin has never mended around a perfectly-timed blow and the kiss of a man's fist. When their gazes cross again, she acutely feels the shared moment in which they swallow – painfully – and her hand reaches for him, wraps around his wrist in what she hopes to be a touch gentle enough to alleviate just a little the wickedness carved into his flesh.
It is not a hurt she has experienced, thank the Lord, but it is one her heart knows far more than it ought to, and enough to understand how horrifying it is. And it bleeds terribly at the knowledge that it's other half has suffered so.
"It wasn't my fault," Fergus says, hesitantly, like he must somehow remind himself still years later that he bears no fault for the violence thrust upon him. "I was a child, like you were. Nobody would ever blame you for this, Marsali." He tells her, brushes her tainted wrist with his hand, a hint of warmth upon her skin that might be absolution he does not pursue until she permits him. She breathes around it, lets herself feel it and appreciates how despite the hardships they have endured, the world has not yet pried their gentleness from them. For the first time, Marsali thinks perhaps their pain and softness can marry.
"Does it change anything between us?" He asks her quietly, and Marsali's eyes are drawn back to his side, to the roughened edges of a deliberate pain she knows and understands – it's the same without being quite the same – and morbidly considers how they match, in a way always have. For a moment, she considers the possibility of their being together having to do with something bigger than just their choices.
"No, of course not." She says eventually, for his story lessens not the love she bears him – Marsali thinks nothing ever will, the promise they'd shared that night in Jamaica one she well intends to keep till the day her soul no longer is. "Ye were just a child and he was… He was…" Her lips part, but despite being well versed in the art of coarse and unrefined language, she has not the words vitriolic enough to truly say aloud what it is she feels, for language is a poor substitute then, for her troubled heart.
"Just a man." Fergus infers with something distressingly absent from his voice, for it lacks the hatred and viciousness he ought to feel for a ghost who hurt him so. "A monster of a man, but a man tout de même, like your father. Do you ever think I could think less of you for surviving the same?"
Marsali swallows, and does not know what she can say to that.
"This," Fergus tells her, his hand coming to rest upon knitted flesh where past pains and tales of healing merge together, "This does not get to define who you are, Marsali. Besides," He says, the hint of a mischievous streak that makes her heart giddy dancing upon the edge of his lips, "We both know you're far too stubborn for that."
Something in her weeps at the feeling of granting herself the tenderness of her own forgiveness, for such a gentle thing has never been a gift she's known how to intertwine with the sharp remnants of the story of a little girl she's only recently learnt to exculpate. Redemption is soft, as it comes to coat her heart, and Marsali takes a moment to breathe as her soul acknowledges letting go of a past wrong done to her she has been burdened with for far too long.
"What do I do with them now?" She asks Fergus then, for this sudden delicacy she can feel sing inside of her in between the vibrant beats of her heart is not a language she knows, when all she's known is the ghosts of the muscles cringing in her back or the faint markings upon her forearms still tethering her to a house that had never known a heart. For words are easy to say aloud – they are but words, and Marsali has a hundred times the tongue of the best bard in miles, she knows many a fine word and has no qualms using them – but how to be other than what once defined her, is something else entirely.
"You live." He says simply, bestows upon her pliable heart the affection it so desperately craves. "Your-" He takes a moment to bite his lip, corrects himself, "Simon McKimmie is dead, he has been for a long time now, his body lies beneath the ground and his soul has been sent to be damned with Captain Randall. Flowers now grow upon his grave and every day, you get to show what part might remain of him that you are happy and safe, and that you live a good life."
Marsali takes a moment to consider it, reflects upon the life she has now – and 'tis a good one – and the immeasurable kinds of love her heart has been gifted since coming here. Wee Germain and Joanie love her dearly, look to her with stars in their eyes and touch her with innocence only bairns raised with love could gift and Marsali is pretty sure her heart is fit to burst on the many times she realizes it fully. Jamie and Claire care for her like her mother would, offer her arms to run to and shoulders to cry on, gentle ears to confide in and a heart to turn to in her time of need, their care freely given because they desire her here, regardless of where she may come from – Claire has taken' me under her wing even because she wants me, she must remind herself then, and might feel something akin to pride at the thought of perhaps being someone worthy to such a woman.
It's just a shame such a perfect life must be marred with the ugliness she has written upon her, she thinks.
"Is that what you do?" She asks Fergus instead, for she knows not what to make of herself then.
"I try to." He tells her, an understanding glint in his eye, and his brow creased in sympathy, for he adds then, "It is not always easy however, sometimes I still feel guilty for what happened. But it has gotten a little easier with time, non?"
Maybe they aren't so ugly, when Marsali thinks she can remember what they had looked like, once. Her hurts have healed much since then, and under Claire's kind tutelage, she has learnt to care for her own hurts like those of the many she heals, for she has come to learn she is worth that much at least. And maybe they'll never turn into something beautiful, Marsali won't ever get to paint a masterpiece with them, but perhaps with one stroke, she could, instead, make peace.
"I wish I could 'ave taken a needle of cyanide to that red bastard's neck, killed him like I did my Da." She spits instead, feels a part of herself come back to her and beside her, Fergus' laughter is a brilliant thing she wishes she could bottle away in a selfish promise of forever.
"I mean it Fergus, I'd 'ave taken a knife te that man' gut, like I did with my father. I dinna care if the blood wouldna ever wash away." She says haughtily, pulls her shoulders back and wishes, perhaps, she were taller, for the few inches Fergus has on her are never a distance she's felt so acutely until then.
"Je sais, I know you would, chérie." He tells her after a moment, letting his spirits settle. With regained composure and a certain air of gravity she knows is spoken from the depths of his heart, he then brushes another kiss upon her knuckles and cares not for the scars she remembers birthed from a drunken man's anger. Marsali begins to wonder if, perchance, there might be something there for her to care for also. "But Milord took care of him, he's gone, they both are, and even if what they did will never truly go away, we're still here. We get to live."
"Besides, I would not wish for you to have to do such a thing, for you should not have to, ever."
"Even if it means I could get that piece he broke in me back?" Marsali challenges him, dares him to deny that those men have taken pieces of them to their graves, fracturing them in ways they can never hope to mend. The thought of letting them go without foisting upon them even a hint of retribution seems disproportionate a sentence, when she considers the pain they have both endured at their hands, and while she wishes not to turn into a shadow of the things their scourgers once were, she thinks something akin to passive forgiveness too light a gift to give them.
"Would it help if I were to tell you that I do not see someone needing to be fixed?" Fergus asks her, looks at her like one might have admired a sculpture of Michelangelo or a masterpiece of Da Vinci and Marsali feels honoured that someone might consider her muse enough to gaze upon her so. Much like them, she bears the fine cracks of time upon her skin still, but hopes for better days to come, where she might come to see herself as a fully realized piece without feeling the need to brush over the imperfections her suffering left behind.
"It doesna make them pretty ye ken? Those men still got te ruin blank canvases that were meant te be ours. Every time I look to these," She says, lifts her wrists and bears the fine white lines painted into her flesh there to the light, a sublime thing that their twisted souls could never hope to make beautiful. "All I see when I look at these is a scared little girl who wasna enough."
"And if I told you that I see a girl who survived, who lived and who grew up to be an extraordinary woman I'm lucky to have married, to have in my life every day and who is more than enough, would that make it any better?"
Marsali chokes out an ugly sound caught between a laugh and a sob, her heart is too raw still, for such palpable affection, but Fergus freely gifts it to her, a gentle thing for her hands to hold and her soul to cherish, and the brilliant smile he gives her as she accepts it almost makes it all worth it. The little white lines of mended flesh that map out a story she has endured dance as he coats them with acceptance, and if Marsali begins to consider them as things she's lived through instead of brands that seek to reduce her to something she is not, they almost look bearable to her eyes. She likes to think she'll perhaps make something beautiful out of them, in time.
"Do they change anything?" Fergus asks from beside her, and at the evident confusion in her brow, he adds, gesturing to his hip. "The marks I have on myself, the ones from Randall and the others, do they change anything in how you see me now that you have the story to go with them?"
There is a hint of something vulnerable in his voice, an apprehension that slithers its way through his accent, like he may think, somewhere, that the brand on his hip might send her scurrying away from him in disgust. Marsali thinks that they may have been broken, once, but the pieces thrust into their vulnerable hands still belonged to them, and if she looks to Fergus again, beneath the scars and the hardships of a once-orphaned brothel boy, he's still the man she married that night in Jamaica, he's still the same, still him.
And she's just Marsali, and perhaps that's enough.
"No." She tells him eventually, forced to recognize that while his hurts might pain her, they would not make her love him less for the world. She is not certain that her heart would know any other way to feel about him anyway, and Marsali is glad of it. "No it doesna change anything."
"Then why do you think this would be any different?" Her heart sways as Fergus presents it to her like it's an evidence, and is so convincing in how he delivers truths to her with something distinctively soft, she might just be willing to believe it this time. She has grown much since then, the patched skin where past hurts have been laid to rest turned pale with age, blend in nearly seamlessly with the rest of her, and she supposes she could, with a little heart, choose to let them simply be if she so desires. So what, should a rather intrusive woman choose to comment on them? Marsali knows her truths, knows what they stand for and the story behind them, knows now also that she need not let what happened to her define her so in a land where the life she leads is beheld only to her own desires.
"I suppose yer right." She says after much consideration, a quiet kind of confession that need not be shared beyond the space between them.
"Of course I am, when am I ever wrong?" There's an intangible giddiness in her as her heart flutters with new-found levity, and she tries – but with little discipline – to hide the smile that pulls at the edge of her lips at Fergus' endearing kind of teasing, merely slaps his hand away with little force and mutters something of silly Frenchmen being bloody impossible te live wit'.
Fool that he is, he gets down on one knee in front of her, and Marsali almost chides him for daring to enact his proposal to her a hundredth time when she catches the glint of something striking in his eye, and understands that he means his gesture as one of the upmost sincerety. Her heart beats louder in her chest as she watches him – slowly – as he bends down, his lips brush the inside of her wrist once again and his breath is warm upon her skin, yet halts before he might go any further. Fergus looks up to her then, a beseeching glint in his eyes, and she feels touched that he would even ask for her ascent.
"May I?"
"Aye." She has not any other word to offer him but this one, hoarse and whispered, as she gives Fergus permission to reverently kiss her again, and feels the very essence of her heart touched for what must feel like the thousandth time since they have sat down together.
Their eyes meet, and the words need not be said aloud for Marsali to snuggle into a gentle embrace, Fergus' arm around her shoulder a soft support she knows to be unconditional. She lets him kiss the crown of her head – a gesture fleeting in its compassion perhaps, but one that speaks words he cannot, and she needs nothing more from him right then when what it says is enough.
They sit there, together, and if her eyes happen to flicker back to her wrist, Marsali likes to think she no longer looks upon them with shame or revulsion, for the knowledge that she is more burns bright now in her heart.