x

Adorbs!

Being A Man.

Jamie stood awkwardly in the doorway of Fergus’ bedroom watching as Claire examined the boy’s foot. Fergus had his teeth firmly set in his bottom lip and was clearly doing his best not to cry although he seemed on the verge of losing that particular battle.

“Well, it’s in there quite deeply but I should be able to get it out easily enough.”

Claire said giving Fergus what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now but you’re actually a very lucky boy, the nail has missed all of the little bones in your foot and although it hurts, it will heal quickly enough.”

“Thank you Milady,” Fergus’ voice shook but he kept the tears that trembled on his lashes at bay. Claire moved to sit beside him on the bed, drawing him into a hug, her arms wrapping tight around his slender shoulders.

“I … I am not verra keen on the …. ah … vue du sang.” Fergus mumbled; apparently even saying the word ‘blood’ in English was too much for him at the moment.

“That’s alright, not many people are.” Claire smiled and gently pulled away to look at him properly. He looked thoroughly pale and she was rather worried he was going to vomit or faint or both.

“Will it be terribly painful Milady? I do not mean to be a coward but …” Fergus’ voice was tight with worry and his eyes were hugely round and dark with the shock of it all.

“It won’t be terribly painful but it will hurt a bit.”

She felt Fergus stiffen beside her in anticipation and pressed a kiss to the riotous curls of his hair not really knowing what else to do or say to try to calm his nerves. Claire had never really had much to do with children, certainly not since ceasing to be one herself and despite her best efforts; she just couldn’t seem to get the natural affinity with them that Jamie had. 

She looked at Jamie over the top of Fergus’ head and opened her eyes wide in silent plea.

Jamie met her gaze and lifted his right shoulder in a half shrug, his brows knitted together and lips pressed into a grim line but made no move to come and take over the job of holding Fergus steady.

“I am going to get some whiskey to help prevent any little infection getting in but I will be right back.”

Claire smiled brightly, her voice deliberately light. She caught Jamie’s sleeve as she brushed past him and he followed with a low admonition to Fergus not to move an inch.  

“You might need to hold him, he’s really quite shaken up.” Claire said briskly as soon as they were out of earshot. She needed whiskey and her small clamp to draw the thing out smoothly first time. The whiskey was no problem, as always a bottle was readily to hand, but she had no idea where the clamp was and began rummaging through the drawers in her surgery. 

“I dinna think he needs to be held, Sassenach.”

Claire paused in her rummaging and shot him a look which Jamie brushed off, spreading his hands before him in a gesture of Çest la vie. 

“He’s nearly eleven years old Claire, he has to learn to take responsibility for his actions.” He spoke firmly but Claire only rolled her eyes at him.

“He is about to have a nail extracted from the ball of his foot, I think he is feeling the consequences of his actions well enough. A little compassion wouldn’t go amiss!”

Claire could feel herself getting angry, but Jamie didn’t seem moved by her words at all.

“Aye, and not tanning his backside for messin’ around by the millpond – which is where I found the wee fool’s boots by the way - seems fairly compassionate to me.”

“For Christ’s sake Jamie! He has a nail in his foot! He needs comfort! He’s a child!” 

Claire exploded, trying to keep her voice low enough not to carry to Fergus down the hall. “Claire I ken ye dinna always understand …”

Jamie began, his voice dangerously low but Claire was beyond angry now and in no mood for a lecture.

“You are being ridiculous. What sort of person denies a child in pain comfort?!”

“Men dinna have the luxury of bein’ able to rely on others for comfort.”

Jamie insisted, although even to his own ears he suspected that he sounded like an ass. Claire snorted in response, confirming his suspicions and a faint blush crept up his cheekbones.

“If you do not want to help, go away. I haven’t got time to argue with you about it and I don’t know where I’ve put my bloody clamp!”

She snapped, huffing away from him and resuming her search. Jamie drew a deep breath through his nose and folded his arms.

“Yon wee clamp is in ye bag, I saw it last night when ye were sorting wee Jamie’s scraped knee.”

Claire seized the bag and sure enough, the clamp was in there.  “Thank you.” Her tone was cold as Claire, picked up the whiskey bottle and made to leave and Jamie caught her arm, giving her a long, level stare.

“Sassenach, I ken ye love the lad, but fussin’ o'er his every scrape is no’ the way to make a man of him.”

“I am not fussing over him…”

“Aye ye are, I used to come home wi’ all sorts o’ injuries an’ I was lucky if my Da cleaned me up and let me go wi'out a sore arse or a flea in my ear to add to my woes for bein’ sae stupid to get injured in the first place.”

Claire rolled her eyes at him again and tutted “People have accidents; they don’t need to be punished for them.”

Jamie nodded and smiled slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting despite his obvious frustration with her.

“As it happens I agree wi’ ye. My father was normally fair but I didna always feel he was being so in those moments.”

“Fine,” Claire answered firmly “But whilst you’re waiting for you medal for not beating an injured child to arrive in the post, could you please ask Jenny to come and help me. She might be less of a brute about it!”

With that Claire brushed his hand off of her arm and marched past. Jamie let her go, watching her walk angrily away. Claire breezed brightly into Fergus’ room, forcing her quarrel with Jamie to the back of her mind. She was angry with him and surprised by his attitude but it was something they would resolve later, for now, Fergus deserved her full attention.

“Right let’s get this out shall we?”

She said, forcing as much cheerful confidence into her voice as she could manage. Fergus nodded, distinctly less confidently and sat back on his bed, gripping the quilt tight.

“Yes Milady.” He squeaked and held his foot out although expecting the bone saw.

“I’m going to wipe some whiskey around the wound, it’ll sting a little but after that we’ll be over in a flash. Just give me a nod when you’re ready.”

Claire took hold of his foot, settling it onto her lap and pouring a little of the amber liquid onto a cloth. The smell of whisky filled the room and Fergus nodded his assent, looking away and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hold on Sassenach.”

Jamie walked resolutely into the room and crossed to the bed, settling himself around Fergus. The boy’s face lit with relief and he released the quilt, placing his small hand into the massive palm offered to him.

“Milord?”

“I’ll hold ye steady and ye grip my hand as hard as ye need to while Milady gets the wee thing out of ye foot.”

Jamie instructed in a tone that brooked no argument, reaching down and taking a firm grip on the boy’s skinny leg, looking him straight in the eye, his expression stern.

“I dinna wish to hear any shrieking mind, but if ye need to you may say “Enfer!” an’ thump my leg with your free hand, alright? Cursing’ can be verra effective pain management.”

Fergus grinned back at him, the boy had a natural bent for foul language and being given permission to say it was better than any kiss on the brow Jamie could have offered.

“Oui Milord! How about … Connard Fils de Pute!” Jamie looked a little taken aback but nodded.

“Ah … Aye. That’ll do.” Claire smiled at them both and gave Jamie’s hand on Fergus’ leg a quick squeeze.

“Right. Ready chaps?” “Oui!” Fergus nodded more certainly this time and Claire quickly swabbed the area, making the boy hiss through his teeth, and then carefully gripped the stubby end of the nail with the clamp and drew it out. 

Fergus used his cursing rights more creatively than even Jamie had envisioned but did not cry and even managed to hold a trembling hand out to receive the nail once Claire had wiped it down. 

“Morceau de merde!“ He sniffed at it, managing to inject as much disdain into the words as the noblest French aristocrat, and then threw it into the fireplace. 

Jamie looked at Claire and his eyes held hers as he bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Well done Sassenach.”

That night in their own bed, Jamie pulled Claire close and buried his face in her hair, sighing contentedly.

“I love it when ye get fierce wi’ me Sassenach, ye get so riled up and ye make me so fired up as well but I canna be truly angry when I feel sae … aroused.”

He murmured pressing himself gently against her

“It was one o’ the first things I loved about ye. Yon foul wee temper.”

Claire laughed that deep laugh of hers that made his stomach flutter.  “You don’t seem so sure when it’s happening!”

“Och, weel, when it’s happening I’m thinkin’ about what I’d do to ye had ye not made me swear an oath.”

“Oh ! Violence is it?!” Claire asked, still smiling and Jamie took a firm grip on the object of his vengeful thoughts making her squirm and squeak against him.

“Not only violence mo nighean donn, other far more wicked things!”

Claire gripped him tightly, causing a squeak of his own

“I don’t recall an oath about those things.”

Jamie said something under his breath and Claire squinted at him accusingly “I said : If I had been foolish enough to make such an oath, I’d gladly break it.” Jamie grinned, shifting so that Claire lay beneath him, his body draped over hers.

“Ye ken I canna resist a foul mouthed, ill tempered wee Sassenach who tells me I’m being a buffoon when I’m being one.”

“So you acknowledge that do you?”

She asked teasingly and Jamie narrowed his eyes at her

“As a matter of fact I do. A lad does need to learn how to be a man but I think ye maybe showed me today that there are better ways. Besides,”

He shrugged nonchalantly “I intend to ha’ many bairns wi’ ye Sassenach and I dinna mean for them to think me a brute.”

Jamie moved into her and Claire gasped, gripping his shoulders and arching her back. "Jamie…”

Claire opened her eyes, locking onto his. He had a strange expression on his face, halfway between teasing and concern and she took his face between her hands, pulling him down to kiss his lips and smooth away any doubts

“I don’t really think you are a brute. Just … a little stern sometimes.”

She whispered and kissed from his mouth down to his collar bone, nipping his shoulder with her teeth.

"Now stop worrying and show me some of these wicked things…”

Jamie ducked his head to her breast, kissing and lightly flicking his tongue against her pale skin.

“Aye my wee vixen, I’ll show ye some o’ mine and ye show me a few of yours.”

I’ve had a few messages asking where this piece is - It’s here!! :)

Hope everyone is enjoying the show and getting a decent OL fix! :) xxx

The Years.

A one shot set around book nine. Just a little fluff in the run up to the premiere of season three tonight. Happy days!!! :) xxx

  I could smell the change on the breeze; it was the scent of wood-smoke, roasting corn harvested in huge batches that left the landscape looking paler and more open. It was the salty tang of curing meat and the sweet aroma of liquid honey. The wind stirred the chime that hung from the porch, a birthday present from Jem and Mandy made with pretty pebbles and pieces of driftwood found by the lake. The pieces clacked together and gently rapped at the shutters Jamie had installed so painstakingly at my request to protect my potted seedlings from the harsh mid-day glare of North Carolina sun.

Autumn was coming and with it the chill that would turn into a bone aching cold come winter and the first snows. I glanced upward at the trees and smiled at the softly yellowing tones of the leaves, not yet ready to give up their summer greenery completely. Much like myself I supposed looking down at my hands, no longer the hands of a young woman – actually they appeared to me to be far older than seemed possible. Then again, with the approach of Autumn came the approach of my birthday and I reasoned that once each birthday feels a little like a triumph, one is allowed a little time to dwell on the advance of old age.

Jamie would turn seventy in May. Seventy. Somehow that startled me more than my own impending birthday and I clutched my scarf to my chest as the wind lifted my hair, closing my eyes and letting the memories the movement stirred wash over me.

I was so lost down memory lane that for a moment I thought the hands on my waist were all in my head. It was only when lips kissed my jaw and the fingers tightened that I realised he was actually behind me.

“Away wi’ the faeries are ye, Sassenach?”

“I was.”

“A good place?”

I hummed agreement low in my throat and leant back against the solid planes of his chest.

“Should I leave ye be?”

“No.”

I shook my head and turned in his arms, cupping is face between my hands and tiptoeing to press my lips lightly to his own. His kiss was soft and warm and I tasted chestnuts on his breath. I smoothed my thumbs over his cheekbones and traced the shell of his ears, suddenly aware of the hot lump of coal which seemed to have taken residence in my throat, making it hard to speak as my eyes misted over.

“Ach, lass. What’s amiss?”

“You’re getting old.”

I sniffed and Jamie’s lip quirked upwards, quickly spreading into a wide smile

“I’m already auld, Sassenach! Ye are no spring chicken yeself, ken?”

I snorted and then buried my face in his shoulder, utterly overcome.

“Och! Claire, mo chridhe, I didna mean to insult ye!”

Jamie’s voice was heavy with guilt and I hastily shook my head, pulling back to look up at him and wiping my eyes impatiently.

“No, I just … oh bloody hell! I’m a doddering old fool!”

Jamie clucked his tongue against his teeth and carefully mopped my face with his handkerchief, relinquishing it into my hands so I could sufficiently blow my nose.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Tis Autumn, ye always get a little … sensitive.”

“Do I?”

Genuinely startled I stuffed his hankie into my own pocket and allowed his hands on my shoulders to turn me carefully back around to face the woods beyond our home.

“Aye, ye see the yellowing trees and the smell of smoke and harvest and ye begin to … ah … feel our years a little more, ken? Am I right?”

I nodded, amazed as always by his intuition.

“Aye, so,”

Jamie moved to stand beside me, his arm around my waist and gestured beyond the oak and chestnut trees, toward the pines and firs higher up on the ridge, their forest of green rising out of the yellowing trees.

“The reason I dinna feel so myself is that I ken ye are an evergreen soul, mo graidhe. Ye will never wilt, nor fade and I will stand in your shadow, awed by your resilience and beauty until I am a hundred years old and if I may, a hundred years more than that.”

He kissed the crown of my head and cocked his head to the side

“I told ye once that it has always been forever for me Sassenach, and I meant it.”

I smiled shakily and nodded

“Forever just seems to be catching up with us a little bit too quickly though.”

“No,”

Jamie gave me a lopsided smile and shook his head

“Those are just the years, lass. Forever is Brianna and the bairns and their families yet to come. It is this plot of land, tilled and cultivated and lived on. It is our vows made before God, and his knowledge of our love. Those are the forever things.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Always.”

I nodded and threaded my fingers through his, the warmth radiating from his palm into mine a reassuring promise. The years would have their way but not yet, not just yet.

Sonas/ Happiness pt.12

Previous chapter here: https://redstarfiction.tumblr.com/post/164497020275/part-11-of-sonashappiness. Thank you so much for your feedback, your encouragement and your love for J+C who are characters very dear to all our hearts. xxx

Brianna sat in the kitchen, her foot on the opposite chair, a cold cloth wrapped around her ankle, listening to the sounds of the birthing room upstairs. Her lips had compressed into a thin line, bloodless and pale with the pressure of her clenched jaw. She wished Jamie would come back and let her know what was going on. He had been gone for perhaps five minutes but it felt like twenty and she needed to know! Damn it! She needed to know now!

She began to get up, heedless of the shooting pain such movement caused her, when she heard a familiar footfall in the hallway

“Da? Jamie?”

“Aye, I’m here. What do ye need, mo chridhe?”

He stepped into the kitchen and Bree found that words deserted her. His face was drawn and as pale as her own was, his complexion the colour of aged ash but his eyes were wild, the iris’ seemingly darker than their usual azure shade.

“Do ye need another compress?”

Bree shook her head mutely but finally words came back to her and she managed to choke out

“Mama? Is she …”

“She’s doing well. I wasna allowed in…”

Jamie’s brows came together and Bree could well imagine the strength of will the old midwife must have shown to keep him out but as frustrated as she knew he was, Bree was glad that her Mama had someone as bloody-minded as a Fraser helping her.

“She’ll be OK, right? The baby is early but not so early that it is bad news? I mean …”

Bree shook her head and closed her eyes, aware that she was babbling. If she thought about it too much then she was likely to work herself up to a hysteria. Better to be silent and wait.

“Sorry.”

She opened her eyes and found Jamie looking down at her with a mixture of amusement and something deeper, darker.

“Ye look so like your mother when ye are mastering your emotions. She has the same glass face, everything ye think flashes across it like ripples on the flat surface of a lake.”

“Mama always said I was good at hiding my feelings. She used to say ‘just like your father’ and I always thought she meant Daddy but …”

Bree smiled shyly and shook her head

“I don’t know how she managed to keep such a secret all those years. I don’t think I could do it.”

“Ye’ll be surprised what ye can do for love, a leannan.”

Jamie drew a chair close beside hers and sat down wearily, not touching her but close enough that she could reach for him should she wish to.

“Mama didn’t love Daddy though. Not after you…”

The note of accusation was faint but distinct and Jamie smiled to himself.

“She loved you though. She wanted the verra best of everything for ye and that included available fathers and from what I ken of the man, Frank was a good father.”

Bree licked her lip and nodded. She would not deny Frank but at the same time, she didn’t want to wound Jamie.

“Ye can speak to me of him, if ye wish.”

Jamie cocked his head and viewed the profile of his daughters face. She was still pale but the haunted look that had crossed her face when he entered the room was gradually fading and Jamie was glad of it. There was nothing he could do for Claire, no matter whether he was in the room or not, but for Brianna … for her he could be strong and help her through the coming hours by distracting her from what was happening upstairs.

“Would you like me to? It must be weird not knowing about the man who, you know, raised your child?”

Her voice rose on the last word, lifting it from a statement to a question and Jamie shrugged.

“I ken bits about him, things your mother told me when we were first married and then more when she returned and told me of you. She didna say a huge amount about him mind, but … ah … men are prideful creatures and it maybe she was protecting mine. I would hear whatever ye cared to say Brianna, about him or any other thing for that matter.”

There was another low moan from the floor above, Bree slipped her hand into Jamie’s palm, squeezing hard, and he squeezed back, just as tightly. The noise passed but Brianna found the silence that followed it almost more unbearable than the scream and hurried to fill it.

“Mama worked a lot. She worked all hours and for a lot of the time it was just me and Daddy. We went out to eat rather than cooking, burgers and pizza, stuff that Mama would have called ‘junk food’ but it was nice, sitting just the two of us in a diner. He always made time for me. I don’t meant that Mama didn’t but she was always so busy at the hospital …”

Bree trailed off and looked at Jamie, her eyes wide and guilty

“She is a really great mother, you know?”

“Aye, I know, Brianna. She be to have raised ye so well.”

Bree nodded, relaxing her shoulders and smiling slightly.

“I just don’t want you to think I’m not grateful to her as well as to Daddy … and to you of course. Mama said that you saved us. That she would have stayed with you on Culloden Moor but you made her go.”

Another scream and the sound of hurrying footsteps in the hall, Jamie leapt to his feet and Bree peered around him but there was only the sound of the linen closet door banging shut and then the footsteps went back to the Lairds chamber and that door banged shut too.

Jamie muttered something under his breath and ran a hand tersely through the tumble of his hair before sitting down again

“It was the hardest thing I ever did, sending ye both away, but the alternative …”

Jamie spread his hands across his lap and blew a shaky breath out between his lips.

“Being a father is no’ just about watching a bairn grow, loving them, disciplining them and teaching them about life. It is about being willing to tear your verra soul in two and give them the bigger piece to keep them safe. Ye dinna need to be grateful to me Brianna, for what I did was only right and I would do it again in a heartbeat to see you right.”

Bree opened her mouth to respond but found that there was momentarily nothing else to say. The stress of waiting for news and listening for any tell-tale sign of what might be happening upstairs had made them both speak more boldly, more freely, than they had done before and now father and daughter sat in companionable silence and waited.

There was a sound like furniture being dragged across the floor above, another cry of pain, excited voices of the women gathered in the room above and then the blessedly high-pitched wail of a newborn baby.

Jamie stood, knocking the chair over backwards in his haste. His palms were sweating and he hastily wiped them on his breeks, swallowing against the sudden dryness of his mouth.

“Oh my God. Da, do you hear that?”

Brianna whispered and clasped her hands in front of her chest, her eyes wide, heedless of the tears that had slipped down her cheeks.

Jamie was staring at the ceiling, his jaw working as he offered up silent prayers, his eyes burning with hope and fear as if he could bend fate to his will if he only stared hard enough.

“Jamie!”

Jenny’s voice rang down the hall.

“Go, Da.”

Bree urged and Jamie glanced down, startled, as if he had temporarily forgotten she was there.

“Should I carry you?”

“Later. For now, give Mama this for me.”

Bree caught his hand and pressed a hard kiss to the scarred knuckles, before sitting back and beaming up at him.

“Go!”

Jamie stooped to kiss her forehead and then bounded out of the kitchen, taking the stairs three at a time. His heart was pounding in his chest. He could hear the baby, God be praised for that much but what of Claire, why couldn’t he hear her voice amongst the clamour?

Jenny was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, a bundle of soft yellow blankets in her arms.

“Mo brathair, ye’ve a son.”

Her eyes were red rimmed and she sniffed heavily as she held the little bundle out toward Jamie.

“Claire?”

Jamie asked and Jenny nodded, carefully placing the baby in his father’s arms.

“It was a hard birth but she’s doing well. Dinna go in to her just yet, she’ll be ready presently.”

Jamie looked down and a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped his throat.

The baby was swaddled tightly but Jamie could see wisps of dark curls fighting to escape the confine of his blankets.

“Aye weel, we ken who your Mam is, do we no?”

He ran a finger cautiously down one soft little cheek and pressed a very gentle kiss to his son’s tiny perfect snub of a nose.

“Halo mo mac, welcome to the world.”

Jamie began walking toward the bedroom and Jenny laid a hand on his arm

“Wait a while, let her gather herself for ye, eh?”

“There’s no need of that. Will ye tell Brianna the news? Tell her I will fetch her up presently.”

Jamie smiled softly and made his way into the bedroom, toward his wife.

Claire was propped up in bed, her hair was plastered to her face and neck with sweat and she was white as the pillow covers she reclined on. Jamie felt a lump spring into his throat and swallowed it with no small difficulty. Jenny had said the birth had been hard but now he saw just how hard and realised with a feeling like being punched in the gut, that it must have been a very close call indeed.

“Sorcha? Mo graidhe?”

Her eyes opened and a smile touched the corners of her mouth

“Jamie. Oh Jamie, we did it!”

“You did it, lass. Ye did it and we have a bonnie wee lad, strong and wi’ lungs as good as his mothers.”

“Is Bree here?”

“She will be in a minute.”

Jamie settled himself on the bed, laying their son against Claire’s chest and helping her fold her arms around the baby.

“Don’t … I’ll drop him.”

“I have ye both, dinna fash.”

Jamie murmured softly, keeping his left hand steadily on the baby’s back, his right hand coming up to cup Claire’s cheek and trace the swell of her bottom lip with his thumb.

“I must look a state.”

She laughed weakly but Jamie shook his head

“I have never seen ye look more beautiful. You are radiant, Claire. Utterly radiant.”

Claire kissed the pad of his thumb and closed her eyes. Her breathing was even and regular and when Jamie was sure she was asleep, he stood lifting the baby with him and crossed to the window looking out across Lallybroch, toward the hills and mountains beyond.

Then, just for a minute in the quiet solitude of the Lairds Chamber, with only his infant son and sleeping wife as witnesses, Jamie Fraser allowed himself to go quietly and very thoroughly to pieces, the depth of his love and gratitude spilling down his face and pattering of the soft cloth of his son’s blanket like spring rain.

Just fantastic, but that last paragraph is utter heart rending perfection (and I see what you did there)

Bravo 👏

Thank you all so much for your kind words. Reblogging for those who follow the series but haven’t seen the update yet :) 

Part 11 of Sonas/Happiness.

Hi everyone, I am so sorry that this has been so long coming. I came to a bit of a cross-road in the story and wasn’t sure how to continue so I left it alone for a little while but now I have found the thread again. In this chapter we first jump forward and then lean backward in time and this is how it will likely continue for a couple of chapters at least and through Brianna’s perspective. 

I really hope you will enjoy it and thank you all so much for your kindness and your patience.

Han xxx

My Introduction to My Father and Re-Learning My Mother by Brianna Ellen Randall Fraser Mackenzie

1782

I couldn’t say for sure exactly when I began to feel like a Fraser. Da made me feel as welcome as he could from the very beginning, as did all of the Murray clan, and Mama of course, but my intrinsic willingness to be included did not kick in immediately.

I was, for want of a better word, overwhelmed.

I’d had plenty of time to come to terms with Jamie and the tale of his love for my mother, and her love for him which was, to me anyway, more important. Mama’s love for Jamie Fraser was what rocked my world and threatened to tip everything into a void of self-doubt and bitterness.

Seeing them together though … I understood it. I saw the way she touched his hand as she passed by him and the way his hand lighted on her hip as they walked together. I noticed the way her eyes sought his at the dinner table and the way he smiled at her, a little lift of the corner of his mouth that was warm and certain. In all these ways and more they each said ‘I love you’ perhaps a hundred times a day.

I had never heard Mama say ‘I love you’ to Daddy. Nor had I seen her offer the words in tiny, silent acts of adoration as she did with Jamie. I had seen her write it in birthday cards and on Christmas gift tags though and as a kid, I had thought that was proof enough. I had been wrong and that knowledge had made me fear that I was wrong about the way she loved me too.

Funnily enough it was Jamie who bridged that void too. I saw myself, my existence, through his eyes. I saw how he adored my presence and how he marvelled at various things I did. It was a bit much really, to go from being a beloved daughter to being an flaunted treasure but what made it a pleasure was seeing Mama’s reaction to his joy.

She urged me forward and shared in his happiness in a way that I had never known her to do. Her pride in me was so obvious that I began to worry I would simply never live up to it…

“Bree?”

Roger’s head popped round the study door and Bree jolted in her seat, her fingers skittering across the page smudging half dried dotted ‘I’s and dashes of ‘t’s.

“Ach! Sorry love!”

Roger bit his lip abashedly, noting the streaks of ink, as he made his way in carrying a tray of coffee and gingernut biscuits.

“No problem, what is a dirty page in the face of such service?”

Bree grinned up at him, stretching her hands above her head and rolling her neck from side to side.

“How is the draft coming along?”

“Better. I feel like I’m finally saying what I want to say about them. About how they were together.”

“How they still are!”

Roger grinned and Bree nodded, snorting.

“Yes, though if Da tramps mud in through the house again Mama might kill him. You know how protective she is of the new rug.”

“Aye, but in your Da’s defence he was just trying to catch Mandy before she could carry the wee frog too far into the house and claim it to be a pet.”

Bree laughed and bit into one of the freshly baked biscuits sighing in pleasure.

“Did Aunt Jenny make these?”

“Aye, the main batch was to decorate the cake for Robbie’s birthday, these are the overspills.”

“I can’t believe my baby brother is about to turn sixteen! And take his first voyage too!”

Bree sighed and shook her head. Roger grinned and bent to place a kiss on the top of her hair.

“Ye should see the state of your mother, she’s cried twice today already and your Da hasn’t even brought the trunk down from the loft yet.”

“Poor Mama. I should go and distract her with something.”

“Unless you intend to help her bind the laddie’s hands and feet and bolt the doors and windows of his room to stop him leaving, I doubt you’ll find her easy to distract.”

Bree smiled in a distracted fashion and closed her eyes as Roger’s hands settled on her shoulders massaging lightly, giving herself over to the sensation and relaxing beneath his gentle fingers.

She let the motion loll her and carry her back through the years, across acres of memory to a time that seemed so desperately long ago and yet also so close that she could still feel the press of her brother’s heel against the palm of her hand, flat against their mother’s belly.

They had been sat in the kitchen, mere minutes after she had met their father for the first time, when Claire had gasped and beamed at them both in delight, gripping first Jamie’s hand and then Brianna’s and pressing their palms to her middle.

Bree remembered the awed look upon her father’s face, his eyes wide and almost disbelieving as the baby turned and stretched, pressing fists, feet and bottom against their hands. She had felt almost like an intruder on their moment, the moment that Jamie had never had with her, both parents feeling the proof of their love. She had begun to move her hand away, intending to leave them be, but Jamie had caught her fingers gently within his free hand

“Stay, Brianna. If ye dinna mind doing so.”

“Sure … I mean … If you want me to…”

“Aye, I do.”

“We both do.”

Her Mama had reached out and cupped her cheek so lightly that Bree had to look to make sure she was not imagining the touch. Her mother’s other hand had settled over Jamie’s, resting against her belly, connecting the four of them physically in a pose that was as symbolic of family as any that had ever been known.

Over the weeks that had followed, she and Jamie came to know each other. It made her smile still to think of the first awkward attempts at working side by side, hesitant and overly polite, neither wanting to spoil the sweet bubble of domesticity that had formed around them.

She had been eager to show her knowledge of guns, horses, and woodwork whilst he had been very happy to listen, encourage, and advise where necessary, but always with a studious respect of the newness of their acquaintance.

It had been a loose rock that had finally bridged the formality. She had been stepping out of the creek, barefoot from laying nets for trout, when the stone she stood on rolled out beneath her, turning her ankle sharply.

The joint had swollen instantly, Jamie’s quick thinking to remove her boot had stopped it needing to be cut off later as within minutes it was three times its usual size.

Jamie had carefully taken her foot into his lap and ever so gently turned it this way and that, biting his own lip at Brianna’s pained gasps.

“I dinna think it is broken but we should get ye back to the house, lass.”

Jamie was still hunkered down on his haunches before her, his brows knotted in sympathy and Bree slapped the ground in frustration,

“Yeah, you’re probably right. It really hurts.”

She had felt foolishly embarrassed, as if she was fussing about a little bump.

“Aye, no doubt. Let me get the bags and I’ll carry ye.”

“Oh! No, Da, really. I can walk.”

She had blushed furiously and struggled to stand, only succeeding in putting a fraction of her weight on the foot before crying out in pain and staggering into his waiting arms.

“Nonsense. Ye can barely stand.”

Jamie had smiled, steadying her and retrieving her boot from the ground.

“Bide here a moment, Bree. Can ye balance? Good.”

Bree had done as he said, wobbly slightly, most of her weight on the uninjured foot as she watched him gather the spare nets and poles, moving with that particular grace and elegance that she longed to capture in lines of charcoal and paint but had not yet built the courage to ask.

“Right, wrap ye arm around my neck, mo chridhe.”

“Da, are ye sure you can … I mean … I’m nearly the same size as you!”

Jamie had snorted at that and held his hand out before her face, long fingers spread wide and cocked an eyebrow in friendly challenge. Bree had placed her own hand against his and laughed at the size difference. Yes, she was big, but the startlingly obvious truth was that he was considerably bigger.

“I think I’ll manage, eh? Now, take a hold of me.”

Bree had done as he asked and besides a small grunt of effort as he had boosted her into his arms, her Da had shown no other visible signs of strain.

She had been amazed at the ease with which he carried her, she had known he was strong but even after nearly two miles his breathing wasn’t laboured and his stride was wide and even, careful not to jostle her and she felt safer in his arms than she had ever expected to feel.

Bree had found herself wondering what it might have been like to have been raised by this man, to have been lifted with familiar ease and sheltered by him from her first breath. With her wondering came a sense of absolute certainty that had she grown up with him, Jamie Fraser would have held her and carried her, supported her and tended to her injuries when they occurred with the same natural affection that he displayed now. She would never have had to feel vulnerable or ashamed. 

Normally any such thought caused a stab of guilt over the Daddy she had lost but now, she merely felt a gentle pull of hope for the future, hope that she would come to know her father well enough that the need for imagining would cease and be replaced with more certainties like this one.

They arrived at Lallybroch within half an hour and as they made their way toward the front door, a low, rising scream reached their ears. Before either of them could react, Jenny’s face appeared at the window and she yelled

“Claire’s having the baby!”

To be continued ….