Gift Of Words

I don't see Jamie for the next three days.

But, the first morning, a small paper bag arrives on my desk, via a blushing, grinning Willie. The bag contains a single, brilliantly yellow rose, a piece of black cardstock, and a short note -

You said we'd figure things out. You were right. Stare at the rose for ten seconds, then look at the card. - J

Smiling fondly, I do so. After ten seconds, an afterimage hovers on the little piece of black paper. It is a perfect replication of the rose.

In Stygian Blue.

The image wavers as my eyes water for some reason. I hurriedly scrawl a note to Mrs. Fitz, and send Willie to the main house with it, telling him it's urgent. When he gets back, I tell him to wait, and I take what he brought with him into my little break room to organize it. I fill one small plastic bag with instant coffee crystals, one with powdered chocolate, and one with brown sugar. I quickly write my mother's favorite mocha recipe - the only coffee based drink I've ever been known to willingly consume - on one scrap of paper, and a very short note on another.

I'm figuring things out too. - C

I fold the two pieces of paper together, tuck them and the baggies into the same paper bag Jamie sent me, and hand it all to Willie, telling him to deliver it to Jamie at the stables, on the double.

The poor boy makes for a rather unimpressive Cupid, but no one could ask for a more willing and cheerful Mercury.

He returns with a small potted Wintergreen plant, and a very confused look on his face.

"Jamie said it 'tasted like penance', Miss Claire," he says, doubtfully, "I dinnae ken wh-" he breaks off as I laugh, then gestures with the clay jar he's holding, "Sae where would ye like this, then?"

I pat the surface of the desk right next to me, and don't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

The second morning, a bright yellow carnation is waiting for me. I send Willie to the stables with a packet of Jammie Dodgers I discreetly got from Mrs. Fitz the night before.

The third morning, there is a box on my desk containing a small, sleek, brand-new info-screen, and next to it, a comm radio, and a charging cube for both. There is a one-word note stuck to the screen.

Nerd.

When I turn it on, I find that a video has already been downloaded onto the info-screen. It is of three tiny fox kits playing with each other. I watch it a dozen times, unable to look away.

My heart clutches at every movement they make. I've already named them William, Rob, and Ian. . .

This requires a response far more meaningful than ironic food.

I spend three hours rummaging about and compounding things in the lab, and two more cursing under my breath as I remember exactly how many years it's been since I took calligraphy classes.

Eventually, with my improvised pen-nib, spatters of the unholy concoction I decided to call ink, and at least twenty ruined pieces of paper scattered around me, I take a look at my final result.

Dear Jamie,

I haven't your gift for words. You always seem to say the right thing, simply, with a sense of deliberation and care that leaves me envious, honestly. Too often, I think far better than I speak, and I feel far more than I express. To me, words are either quick and shallow - fully meant, but multi-purpose - like fallen leaves spread across exposed roots, or they are long, slow-maturing things, hard-won, and often hidden beyond even my own reach for much of their lives, like seeds buried too deep.

Even now, my words come slowly to the page, far slower than they ought, after being laboured over, and changed a dozen, two dozen times before what you see here. And still I fear I am being a clumsy, oafish Outlander, taking a hundred words to say what might be better said in ten.

But if I envy you your eloquence, I am also thankful for it.

I could not let another minute pass without setting this down in black and white -

You, James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, are, and have been since the moment I met you, the most extraordinary, desired, and welcome presence in my life. I thank you, with all I have left of me.

I fear I have not given you half the appreciation you deserve, my dear friend. I am like a starving person given fine food, who does not comment on the delicate flavours, only blesses the giver for mere salvation.

I have been desperately lonely, Jamie. To live only on memories is to slowly freeze oneself to death. For the past eight years I have done little but lose - people, things. . . hope. To have a person now, one who gives me things I need, things I like, and believes in me unquestioning, and without terms, is in itself a gift far beyond any I have ever deserved.

I trust you will take these words as meant - as the only things of true substance I have to give you, poor return though they may be, for all you have granted me.

I hope you will accept them, and a small token of my regard,

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp

"It is the time you have wasted that makes your rose so important."

P.S. You were so passionate over your favourite colour, but you never said which was your favourite shade. So this probably isn't it.

Below this, there is a clipped ringlet of my hair, stuck down with a small blob of candle wax.

Well then. . .

I read it over, one more time. For a thank-you note, it's drastically overdone. And for a love letter, it's pitiful. Just what is this thing I have laboured over?

Something about that strikes true to me, though. Neither of us have any idea what we are, why should our gifts be any different?

I shrug. If he likes me enough to walk through cowshit-scented fields all day, he likes me enough to get past my awkward declarations of esteem.

He's also smart enough to notice that nowhere did I mention the word "love". I haven't said it at all, yet. I've barely even thought it.

Of course, he hasn't said it either. . .

And at the moment, I'm unfathomably grateful for that. We're complicated enough at this stage. . .

I roll up my letter like a scroll, wrap a few lengths of copper wire around it to hold it closed, and take the manager's runabout to his workshop myself. He's out, like I knew he would be, at this time of day. I leave it on a workbench where I'm sure he'll see it.

On Friday morning, I spend several hours with Annie, going through clothes, debating shoe choices, and learning a great deal about cosmetics. She makes me promise that we will go shopping in Cranesmuir before the Yuletide Gathering. I finally make it to the lab after lunch. My progress on the soil chem tests is quite a ways behind where I wanted to be by now - no surprise, really - and so I don't even go into my office until I'm just about ready to leave, so I can prepare for the concert. My mind is very much focused on tonight, and so I almost miss it, but as I go to turn off the lights in the office toilet station, I see it.

Near the middle of my desk, there is a very small, flat box, covered in black and gold paper. Inside are four chocolate truffles, each decorated with stamped gold leaf in the shape of a Tudor rose.

Atop them is a small card, bearing three little words, hand-written in golden ink.

It is now.