ic contact post

[givingback]

audio | video | text

Comments

[nineteenfortyfive]

[This time, when she slips into the bed, she tugs Bree onto her chest some so that there's just a bit more mattress space left for Jamie. Their daughter is small enough that her weight doesn't bother Claire. And, this way, she can keep a hand on her back, feeling her breathe.

She turns her face to look at Jamie, worried, anguished. He hurts, Bree hurts, they all hurt and there's nothing she can do about it.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ When Jamie speaks, it's a hoarse, broken sound. ]

I saw the blood, Claire. When she stood. Christ, it was so much...

[ He can feel the bile rise in his throat again, but with nowhere for it to go he swallows it back down as his eyes burn. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Oh, Christ. Claire squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment, willing away the image of it herself.]

She's all right. I took care of it. She's not in pain.

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Jamie wants desperately to hold his wife but he can't displace his daughter. He won't. So, he settles for reaching out to press his hand to her cheek, stroking her skin with his thumb tenderly. ]

Mo chridhe. You're taking good care of her. It's what she needs and ye can give it to her. Comfort and strength.

[nineteenfortyfive]

So are you.

[She can give him a small smile, at least, proud of this man that already knows how to soothe their daughter.]

In the shower, she was washing herself and suddenly started weeping and scratching at herself. Said she felt his hands on her.

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Jamie's hand stills on her face at that.

He'd just stopped crying, too. ]

It gets worse before it gets better, Claire. Ye ken that.

[ He doesn't know how much more of this pain his heart can bear. It feels as though there's a struggle to even breathe. ]

The nightmares will come.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Her hand leaves Bree's back because right now, her husband needs her. Fingers curl around his, squeezing, before she kisses his knuckles.]

How are you, my darling?

[Her other darling. She knows he's not well, because none of them are. But it's important to ask.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ He knows he promised, but he doesn't want to speak about himself right now and how he is.

But he did promise. ]

I broke a bowl when ye left. Threw it into the wall.

[ There's no evidence of it, save for perhaps a soupy smell to the floor. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

Could have gotten away with that one.

[She teases, no mirth in her voice. Setting his hand down on Bree's back, so he can feel that she's alive and breathing and there, she spends some time stroking his hair, from his hairline and backwards.]

[seventeenfortythree]

I've never felt so broken, Claire.

[ From a man who has been broken in multiple ways over his years. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

And that's all right. She's our baby. Someone, some monster, hurt her. God, but she's strong. Stronger than you and I combined.

[Somehow, greater than the sum of all her parts.]

That's saying something when you're the strongest person I know.

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Jamie takes solace in his wife's words, finding comfort in them. Their daughter is strong. She'll heal and she'll grow and she'll bloom again. He has to believe that. ]

I ken exactly the man who hurt her and if he ever wakes, I'll be there to wrap my hands around his throat and send him to the next life.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[It's a promise. Claire's hand stills in his hair.]

I told you once that I would help you bleed Randall. The same goes for this son of a bitch, too.

[seventeenfortythree]

I'll show him to ye. So ye ken who he is on sight.

[ It's a promise; they will kill whoever needs to be killed together. Whether Randall wakes or Bonnet. They will take care of it for the safety of their family. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

Did... after Culloden, when you knew Randall was dead for good, did it give you peace?

[She's never asked, because she doesn't ask about Randall, and she doesn't ask about Culloden. Until now.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Jamie's jaw tightens for a moment, the question one he hadn't expected. He doesn't think about either of those things deeply if he can help it. ]

Nothing gave me peace after Culloden, Sassenach. I was glad, perhaps, that Randall was gone to join the Devil himself, but for years I didna feel anythin' other than anger that I couldna die.

[ It's the truth, terrible as it is. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

And now?

[Her fingers resume their previous task, combing through his hair. She can't hold him or reach to kiss him right now but she will. Eventually.]

[seventeenfortythree]

Ye came back to me, Claire. It was the first time in twenty years that I felt my heart beat again.

[ His hand reaches out so that his fingertips can lightly brush her cheek before dropping to rest on Brianna's back again. ]

Killing Bonnet won't take away the hurt but it will be satisfying, and he willna be able to hurt anyone else. Same as Randall.

[nineteenfortyfive]

What do we do until then?

[They might never get a chance to hurt Bonnet. To make him suffer for harming their baby.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ What had Jamie done? Tried to die without Claire, but eventually, eventually he'd picked up the pieces of his life and tried to make something of himself even if as a different man in Edinburgh. ]

We soothe her the best we can. Ease her mind when able. Protect her. Be a family. What she has that I didna after Randall was finally dead was us. She has that now. And she's strong, as ye say. She'll be all right.

[ One day. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Her little girl. Claire breathes deeply, content with the weight of Bree half on her, and wraps her arms around her slender form.]

She... she also told me she was wed. Or, handfast, like Fergus and Marsali. To Roger. [She told him about the young man, a historian that helped her find him.] He followed her through the stones. After the handfasting, they had an argument, and he left. Then...

[Bonnet. Not only assaulted, but heartbroken, too.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Christ this is a lot to process, and if not for Brianna between them he'd get up to pace. ]

He left? After a single argument?

[ It angers him, truly, that he left her alone. Left her alone so that when she ran into Bonnet...]

Mo Chreach, toll-toine.

[ Curses that he won't translate for his wife. ]

Do ye think she truly loves him? This Roger.

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire shakes her head. One argument. If she left Jamie after one argument, well, their story would never unfold. She can't even chalk it up to youth--Roger's older than she was when she married Jamie.]

I don't know. The Roger I knew was a good man, and he was there for Bree during her discovering the truth. I can only assume he was there after, too.

Here... here, before this week, she's always said she's unsure. She's been having trouble settling on what love and a marriage means to her.

[Guess whose fault that is.]

[seventeenfortythree]

[ Jamie goes quiet at that, but his eyes settle on Claire's. It's almost as if he can read her mind, and his words in Gaelic are gentler now. ]

Mo chridhe. No one kens what love means to them until they're in it.

[ It's not her fault. ]

[nineteenfortyfive]

I wonder if she's figured it out, then.

[She averts her eyes to look down at Bree, dead asleep between them. Poor thing's cried herself out too many times today.]