Angels And Demons

It takes us a while to reach Colum once we get back to Leoch.

We go first to the Manager's barn, Jamie coming in with me, but I barely pay attention to this, for after one wild orientating glance around, I stumble quickly into the tiny toilet station, where I then spend much longer than I care to admit staring down at the garbage receptacle, dazedly deciding whether or not to be violently sick.

My head aches. My shoulders ache. My legs and feet ache. My stomach aches.

And my heart aches. . .

I do not make a sound as tears well up in my eyes, and spill across my cheeks in two thin, warm lines. A heavy drop forms on the tip of my chin, and ponderously falls onto the closed lid of the toilet seat.

Another drop gathers, and falls.

And another.

Pat, pat, pat. . .

The water slowly drips from my face, and splashes softly on the cold white plastic.

Oh, I miss the simple sorrows of war. . .

Death and danger, battle and loss – these are things I know - things that other people can understand.

Death is terrible, loss hurts like hell, the terror of battle cannot be overstated, and the constant, looming, all-encompassing danger of war is like the long, slow, inevitable thrum of a fusion reactor – everything will burn eventually - there is no escape. It doesn't lead to depression – it is depression.

But soul-deadening hopelessness is still. . . normal!

I sniff indignantly, and drag the backs of my hands across the wet of my eyes, childlike, smearing their salt sting all across my face.

If only these tears were for the normal sorrow of losing a job, or a house, or a baby, or a parent, or a spouse. If only I had smoking wreckage, or screaming fighter planes, or cold, lifeless bodies to point to when explaining myself. Practically anyone would understand grief over those types of things.

But how can I ask for help when I don't even really understand what I'm crying over in the first place?

A vision? An abused boy? A cruel priest? A inexplicable fellow traveler? All of these? Or none of them?

Perhaps I am crying for all the futures I know there will never be.

Perhaps it is for all the pasts I know I'll never change.

But. . . perhaps they are selfish tears. Mere overflow of frustration at being the only one fighting at a losing battle.

I clench two fists tight. Why, oh, why did the future choose me to be its advocate? Weren't my griefs already enough for me to bear? Wasn't the lost potential of one child and one man's obliterated life enough for me to regret? Why give me a whole world's worth of lost men, women and children that I cannot save? And why laden me with such confusion on top of it all?

There is so much I do not understand. Too much. . .

But I cannot even close my eyes, for all I see whenever I do is that endless, empty, hopeless plain of mottled, ugly brown, with its sky of pulsing, oppressive red.

My depression calls to me from the deeps, mocking me, daring me to chase it over the edge. I am dangerously near to following after it, for the second time today. . .

The quiet, fathomless dark. . . the purposeless wandering. . . the blank and fruitless days. . .

All devils I know. . .

Too, too well, I know them. . .

They cry out to me from beyond the abyss, with the seductive siren's song of ease, of comfort, of understanding. . .

I feel my edges begin to dissolve with the longing to let go – the soul-deep desire to slide into a world that at least makes sense. . .

Suddenly, I kick the garbage bucket back into its place, too angry to let myself be sick.

By whatever gods may or may not exist, how dare the universe treat me this way!

Here I am, a time traveler, and as such, possessed of nearly endless advantages. But all I can find to focus on are some weird visions and my own PTSD?

I scowl at my image in the mirror, thoroughly disgusted with myself.

I have many, many more things to do than mope about, fretting over things I don't understand, and that might not even happen!

Deliberately, I clamp down on the steady, self-assured portion of myself that likes to kick about randomly inside me. Usually it only rears itself up when I'm under attack by Dougal and his ilk, but I need to be this Claire right now. General Claire. Sure. Calm. With the big picture in mind. More a planner than a fighter, but with plenty of fight in reserve.

I smirk ruefully as I wash my hands and face. If I could simply be General Claire at will, I wouldn't have been battling depression for all these years. . .

I pat my face and hands with a clean white cotton towel. Still. It can't hurt to try.

When I emerge from the toilet station, Jamie takes one long worried step towards me, but then stops, wary of invading my personal space, if I happen to need it. He says nothing, but care, concern, and a good many questions are written on his face.

I smile sadly. Heavens above, I do not deserve this man.

With a slight incline of my head, I invite him to follow me into the lab. He does, but only into the main room – not the attached computer lab, which is where I am headed.

I retrieve an electronics tool kit from the nearest worktable, and quickly scan the bookshelves here to see if they contain anything that might help me.

I get lucky – the second shelf I look at yields up the manufacturer's spec manual for Colum's custom walker, a user's guide/troubleshooting booklet for that particular brand of support robot, and Davie Beaton's hand-written maintenance log book for this device in particular. There is also a handheld diagnostic interface and a pre-linked access card to a live-update help line. All I need is a network capable info screen, and I'm about as set as I can be in this situation.

I take my finds back out to the main lab, and sit down next to Jamie at the long counter.

He looks steadily at me, the care and concern in his eyes no less than they were a few minutes ago, but still, he says nothing.

I sort a few things in the tool box, and quickly flip through the logbook.

Then, finally, the silence is too much.

"I can tell you have questions, Jamie," I briefly meet his eyes, "So why don't you go ahead and ask them now?"

He smiles wanly, "I only have one."

"Oh? And what is that?"

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly before going on. "Why is it that ye – a Sassenach who's never been tae Scotland before – why is it that ye'er having visions of auld Simon's fetch?"

I blink several times, completely at sea.

"Fetch? What's a fetch?"

"A living ghost," he says, brow wrinkled with confusion, "The wandering spirit of one still living. 'Tis a terrible bad omen. . ."

"Oh." I take this in for a minute. "And who is old Simon?"

"My Da's father. Lord Lovat. Chieftain of Clan Fraser. But everyone calls him The Auld Fox."

"Oh."

The Old Fox. . . Somehow, that rings a very vague and distant sort of bell. . . Desperately, I try to remember everything I've ever heard about Scottish history. . .

But there's nothing. I've either forgotten, or I never knew.

"Oh," I say again, "I. . . don't know, Jamie. I don't know about any of it."

He shakes his head, and gently takes one of my hands in both of his, "How, how is it, Sassenach, that ye see these things wi'out in the least kennin' what it is tha' ye'ev seen?"

I shrug a little, "I don't know that either."

"I dinnae think it can be the Sight."

"You don't?"

"Nae. No' annymoor. 'Tis too strong. Too. . . meaningful. Those wi' the Sight usually always ken what the visions are about – even if they dinnae ken just what they mean – if ye follow me?"

I nod, "I do."

"An' I've nevar heard of som'un wi' Sight visions being able tae project them. But it was. . . it was like ye were made ov glass. I could see right through ye. Inta ye. I could see what ye were seein'."

His hands shake a little as they hold mine, "Ye'er a sublimely terrifyin' woman, Sassenach." He lifts my knuckles to his lips, and kisses them, long and reverently.

For the first time since the vision, I look deeply into his eyes.

All of his usual expression is there – all his brilliance, all his personality – his care, his leadership. . . his stubbornness. . .

Yes, now I can see a resemblance to the face I saw in that horrible, bloody place. The glint in the eyes is similar, their color and brightness the same. The men are totally different, of course – their lives and histories and ideals – I can tell that, absolutely. But yes, I can see that they might be related.

I grip his hand – not so much in reassurance, but with a promise that we will talk more about this subject later, "We should go, Jamie. Colum needs us."

He nods, and leads the way up to the house.