Sassenach

Bacon.

The smell spills out of the open kitchen door, and beckons me toward the bright, inner warmth. I've only ever had bacon once, years and years ago, but the scent is as unforgettable as it is unmistakable.

Mrs. Graham must be frying bacon. . .

Suddenly, tea feels like it was years ago, and my stomach rumbles. The walk back from the hill with the standing stones has been unexpectedly strenuous. I'm starving. I eagerly pull away from Uncle, and almost trip on the slippery stone cobbles of the walk. The soles of my house slippers are wet through with damp, and my toes are numb from stubbing them repeatedly against rocks I cannot see in the dark.

"Whoa!" Lamb exclaims, re-taking my arm and steadying me before handing me up the few steps into the kitchen. "Not again, Claire, really. . ."

"Sorry," I say, shivering slightly, "I'm just not used to the ground being uneve-"

"Lamb!" Mrs. Graham interrupts, snapping a cloth sharply against my uncle's shoulder, "Tell me you didnae take this girl out for a walk, in the cold, and the wet, in house slippers? And her just ower the 'flu! Tell me ye didnae!"

Her accent deepens as she grows more upset.

Uncle suppresses a smile, and shrugs lightly, "Very well. I didn't." He sits down at the kitchen table and pours something steamy from a large jug, "She wanted to go."

Mrs. Graham makes a grumpy, wordless sound that is somehow far more expressive than any words she could have said. In thirty seconds flat, she has my slippers off, hung them over the oven door to dry, and has put my feet in a bowl of steaming hot water, a warm blanket around my shoulders, and a positively massive mug of what I now see is spiced milk in my hand.

For a minute I'm dazed with the speed of her actions - I'm sitting at the table without any clear memory of having gotten here - but then the twin glows of a foot-bath and a hot drink reawaken my senses. I wiggle my toes and sip from the mug, deciding to be content with what I cannot change.

The smiling liveried man who drove me this morning is sitting across from me, chuckling.

"T'missus is verra pa'ticular. Verra pa'ticular." He grins fondly in her direction, "'Specially aboot the damp."

"Mr. Graham, I presume?" I ask, slightly breathless still.

"Aye," he nods, then looks past me to his bustling wife, "Dinna fash yersel' so Mary - this wee Sassenach may not look it," he inclines his head briefly towards me, "But I ken she's as tough as old shoo leather."

Mrs. Graham exclaims again, looks me up and down with a sort of loving exasperation, and then goes back to tending the array of sizzling pans on the cooking station.

From my warm cocoon, I glance between her and Uncle, hoping for some sort of explanation of the last few minutes. When none is forthcoming, I ask, hesitantly, "Sassy. . . neck?"

Mr. Graham explodes in a roar of jubilant laughter, I see Mrs. Graham's shoulders shake, and even Uncle smiles behind his mug of spiced milk.

"No dear," says Lamb, clearly amused, "Sassenach." His accent is far off from how Mr. Graham pronounced it, but that doesn't make it sound any more familiar to my ears. "It means 'English', or, I suppose more accurately, 'outlander'. I'm one too, if that makes you feel any better."

"English?" I say, only more confused at this point, "We're not English. There hasn't been an England for over a hundred and fifty years. After the Unity War, and WWIII, there weren't even countries anymore, let alone-"

"Yes, yes," says Mrs. Graham, descending on the table with three loaded, steaming plates, which she distributes to each of us, "But, you see, dearie, you don't live on land anymore, do ye? "Outlander" is a perfectly accurate title for you Skycity folk."

"Well. . . I suppose so, but. . ."

She adds another boiling hot half-liter to the bowl at my feet, and tops up my mug with freshly steamed milk. "That it's also the traditional Scottish name for people who aren't us is neither here nor there at this point."

"Well, technically. . ." Uncle starts, then quickly silences as Mrs. Graham snaps her hand cloth at his shoulder again.

"Technically it's supper time," she sets a plate mounded with butter and a small crystal pitcher filled with my lemon syrup in the middle of the table. "Now eat yer oatcakes and bacon, the havering lot of you."

Then she plunks down her own plate, and with a triumphant look round the table that practically dares any of us to say anything at all, she puts words to action, and starts to eat her supper.