Chapter 27: State of Mind

"I shall leave you to rest now, M'am," the young soldier, who was sent out to find, show the way to and bring back his wife, offered dutifully as soon as he showed her to her husband's quarters.

Claire only took once glance at Jack sitting by the desk before searching the room for a place to settle the sleeping little Sissy down somewhere. He rose, understanding her meaning at once and opened a door in the back, leading to the double bed that was set up for the couple to sleep in. "Where's Denys and Brianna?" Jack inquired as soon as it was safe to assume his little girl would not wake up for the moment and could be left on her own.

The mother of three left the bedroom door slightly ajar as usual, listening to her maternal instincts that told her that she should always be in earshot of her babies. "Denys wanted to see the horses and you Leftenant kindly offered."

"What is it with that boy and horses." Jack observed, more for the sake of delaying the inevitable conversation between them, rather than anything else.

Claire gave him a weak smile and stepped over to him, putting her hands on his biceps, "are you alright?" She asked empathetically, her forehead leaning close to his.

Jack shrugged and pulled himself out of her arms. If there had been any question at first when they've found out about Jamie's fate, it was without doubt now that she will not be happy with the developments. "Don't do that," Claire caught one of his hands as he turned, and positioned herself once more in front of him. "Your stomach." She put a hand on it habitually, "how has your health been?"

The redcoat scoffed, "I think I should pretty much learn by now how to manage my own health, thank you."

Claire sighed, and shook her head, "Jack, " she challenged his assumption, "I was...I had been dumbfounded, frozen as if struck by lighting with your news. I didn't know how to react, how to feel, what to do, what to say. I've had time to think now and I am calmer. Jamie...we will have to make him understand that you, or even me, we are not the same as we once were. He has to understand." Claire clang rigidly to the notion, "I will explain everything to him. Did you say anything about us yet?" Her voice took on a panicked undertone. They haven't agreed on how was Jack to prepare Jamie for her visit in their confusion the last time and she would've rather preferred to tell the tale herself, hoping for a better outcome.

"I didn't have the chance." For I had to beat him half to death instead.

Claire nodded at that, engulfed by the planning that went on in her head. "He knows you're coming, but not in what capacity. I have repeatedly hinted at my wife being a healer when talking with subordinates however and I have a couple of ailments for you to attend to among the soldiers before I can justify letting you tend to the prisoners. And I think everybody would find it strange if you started right away, without taking the little comforts these quarters can offer first. Water has been heated up for your convenience and I am told there's fresh linen."

"Of course, of course," Claire sat down anxiously on a weatherworn chair. "I know that, I know how it goes," she tried to convince herself. These were the kind of situations Jack has warned her of previously, not to be rash, not to act too much out the ordinary so the escape could be planned and brought to completion safely. "Is he alright?" She asked instead.

"Stubborn and resisting as ever. He has not changed a bit." It was the truth, though it avoided the mention of a certain number of lashes the Scotsman took no less valiantly than before.

"How did he take seeing you as the man in charge around here?" Claire worried for her second husband's mental welfare as well.

"I did not see a difference," Jack provided impatiently, still on his feet. The big bombshell was coming and he couldn't even decide which bothered him more-that Jamie didn't seem fearful or act a tiny bit submissive as an aftereffect of that one night at Wentworth under the duress of similar circumstances, or that Claire was going to rain hell down upon him before long. The whole situation just felt like a big itch he could not scratch. Yet the moment wasn't right telling her, who knows what rash thing the volatile woman would do.

"Jack, we need to talk." The brunette was very pointedly eyeing the chair next to hers for him to sit on.

"What." He turned on his heels to face her, ill-tempered. Of course Claire would have a lot to discuss, but all would eventually turn out to mean nothing when reflected through the light of the punishment he'd dealt. It might have been like any ordinary flogging for all onlookers, with all the wincing and looking away they do, for him, the moment was ominous, with god's bells ringing around him to trap him in a point in time where he was one with creation itself. He shook his head with the backwardness of it. Such god could be nothing else than more evil than the concept itself.

"I know it's disquieting, but we have to talk about what next," Claire misunderstood his shake of the head. "Jack, please," she urged him with another look at the chair.

"Say what you have to say," he stood rigidly, emotions making his entire inner self oscillate, a state he was well used to conceal with solidly pursed lips.

"Jamie's existence doesn't mean we have to be enemies," she blurted out as if trying to get a weight off her chest. "It doesn't mean we have to fall into old habits."

"You mean, my old habits."

"I very much hope that isn't an issue anymore, for that isn't the man I've lived with," Claire appealed to a feeling of despair within her that she clang to, rather than anything else. He had to remain her Jack, he just had to. "I know you think everything's changed and you might've lost your family, but even that doesn't equate to erasing all the experiences of the last six years that have brought us to where we are." If he wasn't going to sit, she stood to approach him once more. The most important thing right now, something she had been omitting due to her own mind's disarray, was to keep him grounded, bound to her and the children as she feared, with good cause, that this would be the only thing keeping him at a distance from that darkness she knew he could never truly leave behind. Her fears proved justified as he grabbed her when she got close, just to toss her away from himself, hard, and not minding where she landed. "But isn't it true, Mrs. Fraser, that legally, we are no one to each other?" He iterated coldly.

Claire steadied herself on the desk and raised her hand to get her rings into view, "in one way or another, none of these wedding bands mean anything in the eyes of the world as they all cancel each other out. Heaven will surely reject me as living in sin. But every one of these, they mean something to me. I could take neither off and I won't," she promised, "I am still the same Claire, no matter the surname, who can help and support you."

"You are afraid that in a position of this particular power, I will become Black Jack again," he stated the obvious.

"That might be true, but that isn't why I said what I said. I do care for you, don't you see that?"

Jack shook his head once, "don't bother. I already flogged him."

"What?" Some part of Claire hoped that in the short few days they've spent away from each other he'd somehow acquired a sense of humour.

"And I loved every moment of it," he added, eyes taking on a dreamy glint, memories electrifying as he spoke.

Tbc