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Chapter Text

ｐｒｏｌｏｇｕｅ

16th April 1746

“Where are we going?” He didn’t answer, just held my waist tighter, so I demanded: Where the hell are we going, Jamie?

“I shall see ye and Faith safe.”

We kept on riding until I saw the place I had never wanted to see again. “Jamie, no. I will not do that. I won’t leave you.”

“You will, Sassenach and ye must do it. If ye dinna do it for me, then ye will for Faith.

The three of us stood together on the hillside watching the standing stones of Craig na Dun, the place I never intended to see again. The local folk said the hill was haunted—a faerie dun. That hill haunted me as a nightmare, too.

I gasped for breath, I was scared like never before. I knew why we were there. He wanted to send me back to my own time, which isn't mine anymore. From the moment I chose him two years ago I belonged to him, in this time, perhaps I always did.

“Come on, Sassenach, we have a wee bit of time now; no one will bother us.”

We sat on the ground, he covered us with his plaid for warmth. It had stopped raining for a moment, but the wild wind blew cold from the mountains nearby. We didn’t say a word, there was no need for it. I tilted my head back and rested it on his shoulder once more, one last time. He softly kissed my forehead. I felt his tears on, even though he wanted to hide his pain from me, but this time he couldn’t.

“Ye and Faith must go now,” he said hastily after we heard the terrible sounds of gunshots and canonfires.

"But I have no life, no home without you,” I cried out and I didn’t intend to move. “You’re my home.”

“And you’re mine but this home is lost. I thought we agreed before, ye must go. Come on, Sassenach,” he said and without other words he seized my wrist and took me to the stone circle.

“Wait,” I murmured, trying to delay his actions.

“What is it, my own?” he questioned with a faint smile. He'd never called me like that before. I smiled with him, smiled for the last time with him. With the love of my life.

“I love you.”

“And I love you too,” he replied and kissed me softly.

Did he exactly feel how I meant those three magic words? Would he understand if I said it a hundred times until I got tired of that? I was sure he would understand that. From the beginning we spoke a secret language; a language that just the two of us know. As I glanced up, taking a long gaze in his deep blue eyes I was certain he understood all my unspoken thoughts as he always did.

“I’d better say goodbye to my wee daughter. We don't have not much time left,” he turned to his daughter.” Come to Da and wish him luck, my Faith,” he said and lifted her daughter up for the last time. A thought ached in my mind—that little one will never see his or her brave father.

“Why?” She was confused—she was just a near-two-year-old without a single idea what’s going on, why were both of her parents in tears, but I knew she would do her best.

“Because your Da’s going to a fight.”

“Brave Da," she murmured. “See home?” Faith asked and her Da nodded hesitantly.

“Aye, bunny, we will meet again soon,” I was watching him. He didn’t want to tell her he would never see her again in this life, but I knew he would protect us, look after us and see us from above.

“Promise?” She lifted her finger and Jamie made a pinky promise with her.

“Aye, as long as I’m not there with ye, ye must listen to yer Mama,” she nodded and gave him a hug.

He watched her face, memorising her whisky eyes, her wild curls every line and every dimple where her smile dragged on. He whispered something like “Give me faith, my Faith” and kissed her forehead, her cheeks until she started laughing by the tickling.

“Good luck, Da!” she sighed and kissed Jamie’s face.

He turned to me, held my waist from behind and tossed me towards the standing stones. When I stepped into the circle I heard the awful buzzing sound.

“Goodbye, Sassenach,” he whispered, and helped to touch the tallest stone.

He knew I wouldn’t do it alone, I’d turn on my heels and go back to that bloody battlefield, but he didn’t give me any choices. I couldn’t say goodbye to him, it was too fresh to think I’ll never see him again.

I resisted but he pressed my hand to the stone and then everything went dark around me.

A dim memory came to my mind. Three years ago, three fucking years when we were in Leoch for the first, at that time I was Mistress Beauchamp, the guest of the Clan MacKenzie and he was known as Jamie MacTavish. We were sitting in the hall with the tenants of the clan and listening to the Welsh bard singing songs while Jamie translated the lyrics for me.

I am a woman of Balnain,
The folk have stolen me over again,
the stones seemed to say
I stood upon the hill, and wind did rise,
and the sound of thunder rolled across the land,
I placed my hands upon the tallest stone
and travelled to a far, distant land,
where I lived for a time among strangers
who became lovers and friends
But one day, I saw the moon came out
and the wind rose once more,
so I touched the stones
and travelled back to my own land
and took up again with the man I had

At that time I planned to go back to the stones, but now I didn't intend to do that.

I truly was the Woman of Balnain.

Chapter Text

17ᵗʰ April 1948

“Where Da, Mama?” She was terrified. Of course, she was. Her father promised her they would meet again soon, and now there were only the two of us.

My head ached as hell. It's getting worse each time, I thought. I didn’t know how long we had been lying on that hill—hours, perhaps a night? 

“Where are we?” 

“Mammma,” she babbled in my ears. “Da no here. He say—”

I sat up and pulled Faith on my lap. Her hair was a little damp from the dewy grass. I brushed hair with my fingers to make her wild reddish-brown curls back. Her cheeks were still as chubby as they’d been when she was a baby, and his dimples—those perfect little dimples—were the sweetest I’d ever seen. Ever since she’d learned to smile, she hadn’t stopped, lighting up rooms with a joy that felt bigger than her. But now, she was quiet, gloomy, her eyes clouded with confusion far too heavy for someone so small. She’d already been through more than any child should have to endure. Jamie always said she looked more like me, that he saw it in her whiskey-colored eyes, the same colour as mine which he always thought it’s charming and even more seductive—but on sleepless nights, in the hush of half-light, I’d catch a glimpse of his father in the way he smiled in his dreams.

“I know, baby. Da said he’ll see you soon, but Faith…”

“What, Mama?”

“Never mind, sweetheart,” I murmured. 

I wanted to cry and scream his name until my voice broke but nothing came out. The weight of his loss was unbearable. The pain was too big, too sharp, lodged in my chest like shattered glass. My body trembled with the need to let it all out, but I was frozen, stuck in a silence that felt louder than any scream. Tears burned behind my eyes, but they refused to fall, as if they didn’t know how to grieve him. All I could do was stand there, hollow and breaking, while the world kept turning without him. The world hadn’t stopped, I couldn’t do that with Faith. I must have moved on for my daughter’s sake.

“Come on, let's find our way back to Inverness,” I suggested with a trembling voice. I was still shocked and lost. How could I continue this life without my strength, my rock and the love of my life?

“Where Da?” she repeated shortly after we left the faerie hill. The folk believed it’s haunted, they were right—Craig na Dun where the stone circle were standing horridly will haunt me for a lifetime.

 “Listen, baby, Da won’t come home for a while.”

 “Why?” 

Faith had always been a curious child. She was a quiet observer with a lot of questions. She was nearly two, and besides that she came two months earlier she was growing well enough since then. She knew more words than her contemporaries. 

I wasn’t sure she said something about Jamie’s ghost would find us, but I noted in myself something like: Yes. He promised me, find us, he would find me.

“You promised me in Paris that you’ll go back through the stones if the time comes, You gave your word to me. So I ask—I beg you—see it safely.”

“Yes. We will go.”

We stood up after a short while. I knew for minutes now everything that truly mattered to me would be dust and happened two hundred years ago.

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ears.”I promise. Two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you—then this is my punishment which I have and for my crimes. For I have lied and killed and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is one thing that shall lie in balance. When I shall stand before God and I shall have one thing to say to weigh against the rest. Lord, you gave me a rare woman and God! I loved her well!

He kissed me softly, his hands played with my wild curls, each touch, each movement must be remembered. “You’re so beautiful, mo nighean donn,” he whispered against my lips.

And now she was the only one who left from the life which truly mattered to me. It wasn’t the first time I realised I didn’t want this life anymore. The first time was when we went back to Leoch after the rent party and gave me the silver ring—his wedding ring—I pressed the ring to my third finger—I accepted everything that came with that life. I didn't even dare to admit to myself how much I fell in love with my brave highlander in such a short time.

We hadn’t talked much while we were walking down the hillside. She was busy with her thoughts and I was trying to calm myself down. Trying to think about it was really the best for both of his children. 

Jamie sent me back to keep us safe but: how can I go back to a man who I left almost three years ago and now I have a child and one in my belly? How can I go back to a man while I’m carrying another man’s child? All I knew was that I must have kept my words. I couldn’t let him down, especially because it was one of his last requests. I knew I must find Frank and tell him everything that had happened in the past few years. Even if he doesn't believe me and thinks I'm insane.

“Baby right?” She asked after a while, when we arrived at Inverness.

“How do you know?”

I was confused. I never told her that she’s going to be a big sister. For a minute I thought she overheard my conversation about the same topic with her father, but I realised at that moment she wasn’t there. She wandered around—sometimes she showed resemblances to me—at least her father said so and joked about how I couldn't have stayed put. Even though she was a quiet, curious observer, sometimes she was a little adventurer when no one looked at her. 

“I feel. Presence.”

“How, baby?”

“Dinna know,” she answered and shrugged her shoulders.

I wanted to say something but I had no idea what to answer for this. Besides, she was a traveller like me, it seemed she had other qualities. I wasn’t sure how she inherited it, and I couldn’t ask it either, because how could she know it? Perhaps, she has other abilities and qualities, too, I thought.

“Baby should be fine, don’t worry, Faith.”

“Walk long?”

I wasn’t sure where we would find Mrs Graham, but I hoped sooner than later.

“I don’t think so, Faith. Do you want to sit down?”

“Mhhm.” 

We sat down on a bench, she snuggled up to me, shivering. I almost asked ’Are you cold, bunny?’ but then I realised there was no point in asking. Her clothes should've been mild and on the other side of the stone there was a heavy downpour which caused her dress to still be wet.

“Mama. Where Da? True.” I looked down while pulling her body closer to me. 

How could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her about the function of the stones? How could I tell her everything without saying too much or in a way she’d understand?

“As Da said he went to a battle. You know, sweetheart… Because, Da’s…” God knew how I could explain everything to her. It was difficult to speak like an almost two-year-old toddler would understand, but I must have given it a try, after all she was more intelligent than children the same age as her. 

“Well, Da is a fearless soldier, and he and his men went to fight bad men for their true leader.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was the easiest method I could clarify to her. “And he sent us to a better place where we will be safe.” I didn’t lie to her. It was the truth, at least almost it was. I thought it was wiser to avoid the ‘we are time travellers part’.

“See him again?”

“I’m sure he’ll visit you in your dreams, bunny. But no, there’s the two of us now.” Three of us, I corrected myself, but I didn't say it aloud.

Inverness was like I remembered. The last time I was there was also in April. It carried a quiet kind of magic. The streets, still damp from early evening rain, shine under fleeting patches of sunlight, and the scent of wet stone and blooming earth lingers in the air. Locals move about in wool coats and scarves, their steps unhurried, as if the town itself knows there’s no need to rush when spring is arriving slowly, gently.

There’s a feeling in the air—like everything was waking up after a long sleep. Not loudly, but with warmth. With hope. And that was what I needed the most. The echoes of my husband’s voice ached into my ears: Give me faith, my Faith and lead me forward, mo Sorcha.

With the second prayer I didn't know whom he had prayed for; to me or to his daughter. Sometimes, after Faith was born he called me Sorcha—that was my name in Gaelic and also our daughter's middle name. He gave her when she was baptised right after she was born. 

Fortunately, it was the beginning of the night. On the streets there were some, but not a lot of people. Some of them stared at us—our outdated clothes, especially. The moon looked at us, hiding behind a cloud. 

My most important task was to find Mrs Graham or her employer, the Reverend, to ask for their help. I didn’t know where to find them but I was certain that he was easier to find.

“ 'm hungry, mama.”

“I know, baby, but we have nothing to pay for.” I was ashamed to admit we had no money, nothing we could pay for some food and something to drink or buy new clothes. “We’ll find her, I promise.”

“Up, mama!” she demanded and I couldn’t deny it. It was the only thing I could give her—no warm clothes, no food, no drink. Only the closeness of my body and the luxury of not walking for her. 

“Easy, easy, good girl,” I whispered while I tried to sit her onto my waist. “Better?” she nodded and we continued to walk down the street. As the Reverend had come to my mind I knew where we could go: the church.

As we continued our walking my thoughts constantly crawled back to him. Every time I winked I saw him smiling at me, I smiled back to him, though I knew he was dead by now. He was in the last two centuries, but the world, where my life was, was close at hand.

Her head on my shoulder, the weight of her body became heavier. It seemed she was too exhausted to keep herself awake. Body needs sleep, I know it well, too well. I saw too many wars in a lifetime—soldiers sleeping in a ditch after a long day spent marching, British pilots sleeping in their plane. I knew all too well how the human body works, though it wasn’t always a terrible thing to know.

“Everything will be alright,” I whispered in her ears. “I swear, I’ll try everything to keep you safe, as Da wanted.”

“Ye can do everything you want, my Sassenach,” the echo of his voice murmured in my ears. “I ken ye can, I’ll always be here with you.”

“Jamie…” I started to cry, then, lacking a tissue, I started to sniffle. 

His voice sounded real, even though it was only a wicked trick made by my mind. To hear his voice gave me hope to continue before giving it up. I must’ve continued it for our daughter and the unborn baby. From the beginning I knew it was the right step. I still wasn’t sure I could do everything he wanted as his last wishes. I must try to do my best, said my rational mind, not only for him, but for his children, too.

“Where’re goin’? " she lifted her head up. She must have woken up for the noises I caused.

“We’re looking for someone who Mama knew before I met your Da. Go back to sleep, baby.”

Chapter Text

It was cold and dark in the church. It was the only place which was open all night. A place where we could stay, pray and find the reverend who was a friend of Frank before I left. Except Faith and I there weren’t other souls around us, of course, it was the middle of the night—people slept in their own beds. The climate in the church was brisk, we hadn’t even had a blanket we could use to survive the night. The only thing I could use to keep her in a normal temperature was the heat of my body and my knitted shawl I gave to her.. 

I involuntarily stroked her back. It was a small movement, but it showed more than just a motion. I’d felt she was relaxed and felt safe in my arms. While she was sleeping I was watching her; her sweet lines of her face, her mixed colour, curly hair-red and brown—, her tiny limbs. It was dark there but I suddenly noticed when she smiled in her sleep like her Da did. During first time at Lallybroch Jenny said it meant he was happy. Then, I was happy, too, as long as we were together. I glanced back at her as her dimples had shown for a brief moment, then it’d gone with her charming smile. I didn’t think she was delighted at that moment, I hoped, prayed that she had dreamt with her father.

I tried to avoid all of my memories of the past, of him but I couldn’t. It stubbornly crawled back to my mind again and again. When two and a half years ago he and I were in France, he—we’d just escaped from Scotland from Wentworth. At that time he was sick and wanted to end his life after what had happened to him at the prison. We stayed at St Anne Abbey where I met Father Anselm. I remember, he was very fond of me. One day, I was sitting in the chapel and asked him to listen to my confession. I told him everything that happened to me in those past months, the whole story about time travelling. He claimed my story as a miracle, perhaps it was, though. Until that day I hadn’t thought about the importance of time. 

Time brought us together and separated us with Jamie. Father Anselm believed my story was not only a miracle, but also a marvelous tale about time, love, decisions—it was indeed. 

Until our conversation I hadn’t believed that life is predestined, but now, after all the pain, love, happiness and all those things that happened I believed in fate. We can change our life with decisions, but we cannot run from our destiny. Jamie’s destiny lied on Culloden, I was still looking for what was mine.

When I had woken up in the morning I didn’t know where I was or why my back hurt, then I realised I was in the church. I checked on Faith. She was still sleeping, breathing the musty air in and out. I didn’t intend to wake her up, at least she slept through the night which had been kind of rare for a long time now. I studied her face, eyelashes and the shape of her tiny head again and again. Although she was more likely to look like me, she had some qualities she got from his father. The most obvious one was that she was stubborn as all Frasers were. How could I look at her without thinking about my past or Jamie? How could I not look at her daughter without thinking of him?

At first I hadn’t felt that someone touched my shoulder and said something. He repeated it and I realised I wasn’t alone anymore with my thoughts.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” I asked and turned to where I heard the voice. I didn’t see his face, because the light streaming in through the window completely covered it up.

“May I help you?” he asked and I recognized his voice.

 He was the reverend. I found him. 

For a minute we looked into each other’s eyes then he realised who was sitting in front of him. I saw the surprise in his eyes and something else but I didn’t know what it was exactly—perhaps disappointment.

“Mrs. Randall, what are ye doing here? You have disappeared.”

I almost said something that would have sounded like ’Yes, I disappeared and now I’m here again, don’t you see?’ but I decided to do otherwise, so I swallowed my thoughts and tried to say something polite. 

“Mama…Ye Faser, no’ Randall.” Her voice was sleepy and quiet but clear. It was the only thing I “missed”. I knew the reverend heard what she said. I couldn’t blame her for telling him in a brief nutshell what I did or whom I was with in the last three years.

“Who’s she?” 

“She’s my daughter, Faith. She said…Well, she simply…”

“What in heaven’s name happened to you, Mrs–”

“Claire would do,” I helped him with the name.

“Claire,” he repeated.

Frank. the thought of him ached in my mind. Jamie’s last wishes were to come back and go back to him to know his child was safe and loved. Now, I was there, speaking with one of his friends, it was close at hand to continue that life I didn’t want anymore.

“I don’t want to be impolite, but I know you and my…” I wasn't sure what to call Frank. I was aware that he wasn’t my husband anymore, because I was married to another man. “... Frank are friends, at least you were when I-I disappeared. And…” I had no clue how to explain to him what I wanted.

“Ye’re looking for him,” he helped me out and I noted almost invisibly. “First, you need some new clothes, both of ye, you and the wee lassie. 

“And food,” Faith added and joined the reverend to make a list of what we needed.

“Yes, Faith, but it’s not the way you tell people what you want,” I scolded her.

She smiled playfully, I touched her nose and she started to chuckle. It seemed she was alright, she wasn’t sick, she felt all right, and she hadn’t asked yet where Jamie was. I took it as a good sign. She looked around in the church, and Sse stretched, her limbs stiff, as she had barely had the opportunity to sleep in a comfortable position.

“How old is she?”

“She’ll turn two next month,” I admitted, there was nothing I wanted to hide from people, except that I travelled two hundred years back in time. I was an adulteress with a toddler and another in my belly who would show up some weeks from now,

“We had better leave now. You must have frozen to death.” I didn't mention but he was smart enough to know we’d been here all night. 

He stood up and helped me to stand up. I didn’t feel my legs and my arms were still sleepy. 

“Can you walk, baby?” she nodded, then I put her on the ground.

I held her hand and we followed the reverend. When we left the church behind us and felt the fresh air pass through our lungs I had a brief feeling that everything would be all right. She would be all right, loved and safe—the little one as well. 

I touched my abdomen and I silently promised to  the baby that he or she would also be fine. I could protect them, be their mother and their nurse as well; but I couldn’t be their father. I needed a man to be their da. But the man I wanted wasn’t there—he was dead.

“Claire, sit inside the car,” said the reverend, and I nodded and said ‘yes’.

I sat quietly, Faith was next to me. She didn’t understand the working of the cars and she asked a lot of questions. It was a new experience for her, she had only seen carriages with horses, however cars with engines and without horses, never.  My hands folded in my lap, my eyes tracing the blur of passing trees through the window. 

Since I’d come back, I had a strange feeling that the life, the moment I left behind wasn’t just a thing I would never get back. The road they took was familiar—one we had traveled before many times, back when I was there, when I was with him, when he was still alive. It was strange how the turns still felt the same, though everything inside me had changed.

The reverend was a kind driver, offering small talk that I refused, so he answered Faith’s simple questions about cars and their function. I barely heard their chatting. My mind wandered, tugged back by memories that clung to every moment, every second when I truly felt I was alive, happy with him and the things I never had experienced as Frank’s wife. I felt the empty space inside me, even though I knew he always would be with me.  

Now, every mile seemed to stretch the loneliness tighter around me. I shook my head and embraced my daughter. I’m not going to be a nut. I must survive for them, I thought.

“May I have a question?” I questioned suddenly which surprised me. I hadn’t said a word since we left the church.

“What would it be?” He almost called me by my name then he thought again and swallowed back ‘Claire’.

“Is Mrs Graham still working for you?”

Chapter Text

Lallybroch, 1746

When he woke up he didn’t know where he was or how long he had been sleeping. It was as cold as the day when he saw her wife and bairns safe. His thoughts wriggled back to his wife again and again. Her bonnie eyes, coloured like the finest whisky, her playful smile and her fine touch on his skin.

He survived. Jamie Fraser survived the battle of Culloden.

If he had known, he wouldn't have sent his wife back to the stones, back…to her first husband. 

He was lying in bed. His leg still hurt, but not much it had before. He didn’t remember what had happened at Culloden, and it was fine for him. Why would he want to remember a day when his life ended? He had left nothing in that world, everything truly mattered to him, his lasses were gone.

He shivered with cold, his teeth were chattering—it must have been the bloody traumatic fever. His wife would know what she had to do with him. She was—is, he reminded himself—a wise woman. The wisest he had ever known. His Sorcha…

“Claire…” he whispered her name like a prayer and the echoes of her name gave him goosebumps. 

“Brother! You’ve woken up,” Jenny cried out and jumped off the chair. “How are ye feel?”

“It’s cold here. I need my wife. She knows how to heal me.”

“Jamie, she’s not here. We havena seen here since the three of ye left.

He turned toward the wall after he heard Jenny’s words. Claire wasn’t there. All the time he knew it. He sent her back, but he hoped it was just a nightmare, but it wasn’t. They were gone, knowing he died on that battlefield. He stared at the wall, tried to sleep, counted sheeps, hoping it’d help. When the dream caught him, he fell into a deep sleep. Without dreams, nightmares he could remember when he woke up.

“Ye must eat something, mo bráthair,” Jenny commanded and sat next to his bed with a bowl of broth.

“I dinna want to eat,” he said stubbornly.

 He didn’t even turn toward his sister.

“Ye must, if you dinna eat a wee bi’ o’ I’m sure ye willna be wi’ us by the end of the month.”

“I dinna care.” 

Jenny put the broth on the bedside table upsetly. The bowl hit the table and the suddenness made the soup spill out. He stood up and ran out of the room with tears in her eyes.

The days were all the same. He lay motionless in the narrow bed, sweat soaked sheets clinging to his fevered skin. The room was dim, the air thick with the sour scent of fever and vomit. His wound healed well as the day went, but the lack of Claire and faith almost killed him. 

They said he was lucky even though he thought otherwise. When he arrived at Lallybroch he was near to dying, but he wouldn’t have minded if he died on that day. Jamie tried to die—tried hard enough, but nothing had worked. Jenny cut his wound open and cleaned it, so they didn't have to cut off his leg. Claire called it amputation, he thought, and smiled with tears as his wife crawled back to his mind. She stitched hastily and hoped he would survive the night. 

Ian repeated he was lucky that Jenny could spare his leg. He was lucky indeed, he knew it, but it would have been better if Claire and wee Faith were there with him.

The fever burnt in his bones; throbbed with every beat of his heart, sending waves of pain through his body. The fever had taken hold quickly, dragging him into a haze of heat and confusion, where past and present blurred together like smoke.

He didn’t speak—only as much as was necessary. He didn’t eat. When they brought food, he turned his face to the wall, eyes dull and distant. He didn’t want to get better. The fight had taken too much—his family, his brothers-in-arms, his hope, maybe even the last thread of his will. There was no point in healing, no peace waiting for him on the other side of the fever.

He welcomed the fire that burned inside him, saw it not as an enemy, but a slow escape. If death wanted him, he wouldn’t resist. He had nothing left to fight for. He had nothing left in this world.

His sister’s family was around him and the place once felt like home; it wasn't anymore. Lallybroch felt cold and loveless without his family. The life without Claire and his wee Faith was unimaginable. Now, he only could see them in his memories or perhaps he will visit them in his dreams like he did before.

Chapter Text

“Brother, it’s almost been a month now. Ye arena willin’ to eat, be wi’ yer family who loves ye. I’m helpless wha’ should I do wi’ ye,” said Jenny as she entered the room.

She sat down on the chair next to his bed, put her hands on his arm, but he shook her palm of hand from his right arm. He didn’t want people to touch him even if that person was his own sister who touched him. The only touch that he was thirsty and starving for―his wife, his Sorcha’s touch.

“Leave me alone,” he answered and closed his eyes, imagining his wife and her two-year-old were with him. 

It was her second birthday. His bonnie wee lass turned two and he wasn’t there; or they weren’t there to celebrate her birthday. And he wouldn’t be there on any of her birthdays, he cherished that one—the first and only when he was able to celebrate with her daughter. And there was the day when wee Faith was born. It seemed to him like it was in another life, it was a very long time ago. All the nuns thought she wouldn’t live the next morning; she was so wee and born two and a half months earlier than she should have been, but she was his daughter: a true warrior. She survived and grew healthy. Faith was—is, he corrected himself, a miracle, his mìorbhail every way she could be.

“Jamie, ye canna grieve them all o’ yer life. They’re gone. I dinna ken they’re dead or no’ but they arena here.”

“They’re alive. I sent them to a better place,” Jamie murmured with sorrow. 

“So Claire and Faith are safe?”

“I hope so, but I ken she did everything she could.”

He was sure he was right about that, about Claire. He knew his beloved wife more than anyone else in this world. Knowing she did everything to make sure that Faith and the baby is all right gave him a little relief. He knew she did everything to the best of her knowledge as she always did. He hated the fact he wouldn’t see both of his children growing up and it broke his heart for a million pieces but it was the best for all of them.

“I ken. I ken ye love her more than anything in yer life and she loved ye the same as ye her. But when ye’re ready, ye must move on. Life will never stop,” she declared, placing her hand on his arm, trying to encourage him even though she knew it was useless. “She shall write ye, brother. There’s no place in this world from where she couldna write a letter.”

Jenny was wrong. Even though, to the best of her knowledge there weren’t  places they couldn't write, for Jamie there was one―the future.

“She willna write. She… We made an arrangement. I am a traitor to the Crown, they know me as ‘Red Jamie’ and they know her as the ‘Stuart Witch’. It'd be dangerous for both of us to exchange messages.”

“But–”

“Jenny, enough. I dinna want to speak about her,” he snarled at Jenny. 

There was more than enough talking about Claire and Faith. He didn’t even think once he would talk about what happened. Although he couldn’t tell the whole story, the truth about the faerie hill and the stone circle he made a simple but probable story like Claire did when they’d met three years ago.

He dragged himself closer to the wall. It was cold and a little damp but he didn’t care about it. It was white which reminded him of Claire's skin colour; white as milk, soft as silk and she has the finest touch. On their first night at Leoch when she wept in his arms he said something about her husband is a lucky man and now he meant it as he said. He was lucky to have a woman like her.

As he pronounced the word ‘husband’ in his head he realised he wasn’t her husband anymore. She must have come back to Frank as she promised she would do. At the same time he hated and was grateful to that man. He knew the other man would keep the three of them safe. 

He closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep—sleeping was the only place where he was relaxed. Sometimes he dreamt about Claire and Faith but he didn't constantly think about them as he did when he had been awakened.

The sleep came to him and he began to  dream. It wasn’t unusual to him to see things he hadn’t seen before.They were images, strange machines, a lot of light; he thought it must have been the future, then. Most of the time it wasn't clear what it was exactly, what had he seen in it, it was full of confusion and dimness. He was there and  also he wasn't. He saw what was happening and at the same time he didn't. He wasn't in his body, he felt himself like a ghost without a body. Although his soul was there.

He heard the laughter behind him and he looked there. He saw his two-year-old wee Faith chuckling and lying in her Mama’s lap while she was tickling her.

Claire’s hair was shorter than he remembered but her wild light brown curls were playfully wrapped around her beautiful face. His wife wasn’t as slim as he saw him for the last time on the faerie hill; of course she was carrying their child and she must’ve eaten properly. 

He didn't know how he knew it was real what he saw or it was in the future but he knew it as a fact like his wife had the most beautiful eye colour which reminded him of the fine Scottish whisky they had drunk together. 

Both of them were smiling and wearing strange clothes that didn't seem like clothes from the 18th century. For a moment he was relieved and then heard a woman’s voice coming towards his wife.

“What will ye do, dear?”

“I have know idea, but I’ll do everything for these two on my own,” she answered, attacking Faith with kisses. Both of them seemed happy even though he saw some fear in her bonnie eyes. 

“If ye need anything or ye want to stay until ye find a flat, then I’ll help ye. It must be hard for ye.

“Thank you, Mrs Graham,” she muttered. She blinked a lot and hard so that no one would notice that something wasn’t all right. She had no one to talk about her fears; she was precisely alone.

“Now, tell me about him again. Ye always call him yer brave highlander…”

As he woke up, shivering from the dream. He took a long breath into his lungs, then exhaled. Trembling with the horrible feeling he was mistaken. It seemed the right step and now… It turned out to be the worst thing he could have done. 

Something had really gone wrong with his family.

Chapter Text

As the reverend parked in front of his Victorian-style house, the house I knew well before… before I had left, disappeared and fallen through time. It wasn’t new for me but it scared me to come back after all that had happened. There were numerous things from which I was afraid. While we were riding I made a list in my mind about the things I was worried about:

First, there was Frank. What the hell will I say to him? Everything that came to my mind sounded awful. They weren’t perfect or appropriate. “Hello, Frank. I’m back.” Yes, it could work and after that? After that what? How can I tell him what has happened in the past three years? How can I  share with him that I'm pregnant with another man’s child and I have another one, a toddler, turning two next month? There was no appropriate way in my case. Whatever happened, it would be awful no matter what I say.

Second , how will we move on?  I was one hundred percent sure that both of us would never move on the previous day. Even if she will not remember her father she will always carry the wound of the loss of her father. I must focus on the present. She perfectly remembers him, but will she after five years or more? Or she will know Frank as her father instead of  her biological father?  I told you, focus on the present, Beauchamp,  I remembered myself.

Third, what will Frank say? Will he believe me as Jamie did when I told him the truth? Although, I was sure of the answer. No. He would believe me when pigs fly.Why would he? He was a realist, his rational mind would say it’s insane it couldn’t have happened. But it did. He was an educated man, he didn’t believe in things which could not be substantiated by a fact or explanation. 

Fourth, I had a child and one in my belly. Before I left we’d tried to start a family, but God bless, I hadn’t conceived. For years and for months after my second wedding I thought I was barren. Before I left, when I was here, in Scotland with Frank on our second honeymoon we’d talked about starting our own family as the war ended. I’d suggested adoption as our last refuge but he refused. He had said he couldn’t love a child who wasn’t his blood. And now there I was… with two children under the age of three. 

I had never been against adoption; as an orphan raised by my uncle I found it a wonderful act. With Jamie we had never talked about the fact that from the blue we became parents for a French nine-year-old pickpocket. As Jamie hired him to steal letters and everything had come after that, it was obvious he had become a part of our family. He was a wonderful, caring brother to Faith, the best we could have asked for. My sweet Fergus… I had no chance to see him again in this life. I hoped, I prayed he got home with a contract with signs of the property over to Young Jamie, with signatures from me and Murtagh as legal witnesses. Also, he found his place at Lallybroch without us.

“Are ye all right?”  The reverend asked and I nodded indistinctly.

“I’ll be. Come on, baby. I know you’re tired and after last night you’ll definitely catch a cold, but can you make it to the house?” She trembled as a leaf, so I didn’t wait until she answered. I lifted her up in my arms, holding her, placing her sitting onto my waist. “You’re safe now. You’re going to be okay. You’ll sleep in clean, warm clothes in a proper bed.”

“Sory?”

“Yes, bunny, I’ll tell you a story,” I promised and pulled her closer to my chest. 

As I stepped inside the house, recognizing the same scent I smelled when I was here before, with Frank. He didn’t say anything and just led me upstairs; we got to the second floor and he opened the second door to the left. That room.

The room looked almost exactly as it had three years ago, as if time had paused the moment I vanished. The pale blue walls had faded slightly, and the lace curtains still danced gently with the breeze from the half-open window. The same quilt lay neatly over the narrow bed, and in the corner sat the old armchair where I used to read and looking for that blue flower I saw near the stone circle which reminded me of forget-me-not. It wasn’t a place I’d call home—it never had been—but for a little while, it had felt like a safe place. Now, standing in the doorway, I could almost see the ghost of the woman I’d been before everything changed. 

I took a long breath, closed my eyes and remembered my last night. It was a heavy downpour in Inverness, I was sitting there, in front of the mirror when the power went out. I had lit candles when Frank came into the room; he was agitated. I dimly remembered I asked him about had he seen a ghost and he answered “perhaps”. I thought about that incident many times. Especially now; Frank mentioned he had worn traditional Scottish clothes. Perhaps… Perhaps it was him? Somehow he led me to the path to start my journey? Perhaps is ghost led me to him on the following day?

As I stepped inside, it felt like the walls exhaled. 

“I’ll bring clothes for the bairn,” said the reverend and left us alone.

When I found my old suitcase on the coffee table covered with dust my heart almost stopped. I placed my finger on its lock, and I realised no one was here, in this very room since Frank left and left my suitcase there. I put Faith down to the armchair and covered her in a plaid.

“Stay there a little, bunny. Mama’s going to look at what we have in there.” 

I opened the lock and folded the top up. On the top I found the framed photo from my wedding with Frank. I was young, very young there, of course I was. I was only eighteen years old. I hadn’t known much about marriage at that age when I got married again when I was twenty-seven I knew a lot more. Jamie and I got married in the same church. I took the picture out of the suitcase and looked through my old clothes. It seemed unbelievable to wear them without a lot of layers and petticoats but I had to manage; there were harder things in life than thinking about layers under the dress.

“Mama?” I didn’t notice she didn’t stay put and came close to me. She looked at the photo of me and Frank. She touched the glass of the frame, touched my face and then looked at me.

“Yes, baby. That’s me in the photo.”

“He? No Da.”

“He is…”  

Yes, who’s he, Beauchamp? What will you say to her? You can’t tell her he’s-was- or your husband again. Just say something!

“You. Here ’n’ there?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. This thing,” I pointed at the photograph,” is called a photo. It’s like a painting you saw in Lallybroch about your Auntie and your Da, remember?” She nodded and waited for me to continue. “It was made with light. It catches people's likeness. It’s a memory you can hold in your hands. Look, baby, I was younger there with eleven years. I was eighteen there, you see?” I touched my much younger face and tried to remember that day but I couldn’t. “I know it’s hard to see but there’ll be more things you’ve not seen before but don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Too many memories for a day. When Faith asked me about photos she reminded Jamie. The way she questioned was the same as he had done before many times. She had so much of him.

I heard her unspoken thoughts. I could perfectly read in those angel eyes she had. She wanted to know why I didn’t have a single picture with her father.

“If we had a chance we’d have but it was different.” 

“Why?” 

Oh, my sweet curious baby! How can I explain her time travelling in a way she’d understand? Or should I tell her about time travelling and the stones? 

“Did you see the people yesterday? They wore different clothes than us.”

“Mhhm,” she hummed.

Deep breath, Beauchamp, she’s too curious, she’s your daughter after all, she must have inherited your curiosity, and now you’ll tell her about the stones and everything in the easiest way you can explain in a nutshell.

“Do you remember you’ve seen Da, touched the stone and when you woke up he wasn’t there. It’s like entering another world.”

“How?”

“It’s magic but it’s a secret.”

“Okay, Mama.”

Someone knocked on the door and waited for my permission. 

“Come in.” It wasn’t the reverend. The one who knocked on the door was Mrs Graham.

“Mr Wakefield was right then. Ye’ve back.”

“I am. We are.” That was the point where she realised I wasn’t alone. She showed some signs of surprise then she spoke up. 

“I brought some clothes for you and the bairn, too.”

“Thank you, we appreciate it,” I took the clean clothes from her. “Can you boil water for the bath?” 

After I had said I realised there was no need of boiling water for the bath. After all, we were in the 20th century. “I’m sorry,” I murmured softly. “I-I…” 

“Will ye tell me what had happened wi’ ye, Claire?”

 I nodded, I knew she would believe me. She was the one who told my future from tea leaves and from the lines of my palm of hand. She told me about the journey while staying put about my second marriage and the strangers who’d become a part of my life. I suggested she have a seat and I started from the beginning. She wasn’t surprised at all when I told her I had found myself in the past. She was the third person to whom I told my story. The first was Jamie after he saved me from the pyre burning as a witch. The next was Father Anselm in the abbey in France after Wentworth where I healed Jamie after what had happened with Black Jack Randall and there I was… telling my story to Mrs Graham. 

“And now I don’t know what I will do,” I noted after hours later, finishing the story. “I promised him I will come back to keep the children safe and back to Frank to take care of me and the children. But my heart wants to go back, find him and live happily ever after because nothing hurts more than living a life without him,” I bursted into tear, though I didn’t want to look weak but as I spoke about him, as I told all my memories and thought about the unspoken memories of him I… I realised that I had no life without him.

“I have tae tell ye something, dear…”

Chapter Text

“First o’ all, what you went through is fabolous. You have had an incredible journey and  I’m so sorry for yer loss. It must be verra hard for ye to manage to live wi’out him. He must have been a rare gentleman.”

“He is. Was,” I corrected myself as I realised he was dead by now. “Thank you, Mrs Graham,” I nodded as I looked down at my silver ring. I pressed my left thumb to the base of my right thumb. I took a deep breath when I felt his touch on my skin.  The tiny J aching there with the painful memory.

“Jamie,” I said. My voice was hoarse but I was determined as he was with sending me back. “Jamie, I want you to mark me.”

“What?”

The tiny sgian dubh which he gave me in the first days of our marriage was lying in my stocking, I reached for it and handed it to Jamie.

“Cut me. Deep enough to leave a scar,” I said urgently. 

I had a deeper reason to ask him to mark me his own. I knew I would never see him again, so I wanted to feel his touch on my finger, on my skin by the tiny J mark whenever I touched it. I wanted to take his soft touch with me, something that will always stay with me.

I wanted to say it to him but I couldn’t. He had taken a long glance into my eyes and he realised in the moment why I had asked. 

“I don’t care if it hurts, nothing could hurt more than leaving you.”

His hand rested on the knife. I felt the hesitation in his movement when he took my right—where his silver ring was placed, too. He turned my palm upward, he kissed it softly while he was examining every line of my hand. The tiny J mark was bleeding a little but it wasn’t too much. 

He handed me the knife and his hand to do the same with him.

“But it’s your left hand,” I said with surprise. “Your sword hilt will press on it.”

He smiled faintly.

“At least I will feel your touch on me in my last fight. Could I ask for more?” I saw the tears in his eyes, as he saw them in mine. I looked down and pressed my wounded hand to his.

“Blood of my Blood,” I whispered.

“... and Bone of my Bone,” he answered. Neither of us could finish the vow, “so as long as we both shall live,” but the unspoken words hung between us and the moment.

“I’m sorry. Have you said something? My memories… I…”

“There’s no need for an explanation, dear. I understand. Yer memories drift ye away again and again.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “If you don’t mind we’re going to take a hot bath and then we can continue.”

“ ‘Course, dear.”

Mrs Graham left our room hastily. I looked around the room, looking for Faith; I supposed she’d have wandered around as her curious nature thirsts for the exploration of unknown things. She reminded me of my uncle Lamb who raised me after my parents died in a car accident when I was five and she also reminded me of myself as well. I had numerous memories in my mind that I could recall when I wandered around, sometimes putting myself in jeopardy.

“Come, baby, let’s take a hot bath.”

“Tired,” she hummed. 

She was lying on the bed, her eyes were closed and she was ready to sleep.

“I know, Faith. But you’re dirty, Wearing old clothes and Mama knows you need a hot, modern bath. It’s a thing you’ve never seen before.”

“Sure?”

“Mhhm. Come now and after that you can sleep as much as you want. And I take you to the bathroom so you don’t have to walk.”

I didn’t wait until she answered. Her weight was heavy in my arms as she didn’t hold herself. I’d realised for months now I wouldn’t be able to hold Faith in my arms. I must have cherished those moments because the time would come when I would hold her little brother or sister in my arms. Some day would come the day when it would be the last time and I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to be a mother of two without my devoted husband. How will we survive? How will we manage to move on? This little one will never know his or hers father, oh God, how they'd have loved each other!

“Mama?”

“Yes, bunny?” I asked back, waiting for the rest of her thoughts.

“Da comes? Baby.

“No, he won’t. He’s not here.”

“Why?” 

Having had a curious daughter was not always a great thing, especially when you had the most difficult part of your life. But you moved on because nothing could compare the feeling of seeing her smiling, being delighted and getting answers to all her questions.

“He’s not alive.

“But…” I cut her off. She was right in the way she understood the things that happened.

“I know, bunny but it’s different. When you get older I’ll tell you everything but, now jump in the tub.”

Am I a bad mother for not telling her the truth? Maybe I could tell her in a way she’d  have understood? I didn’t know the right answers but I knew I had to find a solution for our problems. I put her into the tub and let her enjoy the water and the bubbles around her. She had never enjoyed things like that. Her first two years of her life were rough. She was born into the middle of the Jacobite Rebellion which made us living without luxury what we had in Paris. She was only two months old or so when we had sailed back to Scotland and after that our life changed.

She was playing with the bubbles, playing as she had a bakery and an ice cream shop. She asked me what flavour I wanted. I was quite surprised because she’d never been any of those, living in the Scottish Highlands in the 18th century it wasn’t possible to know about them. When I asked her about it she simply said she had seen it in her dreams and she didn’t tell more about her dreams and went back to serve my ice cream.

I put my finger into the water and it was getting colder. I warned her to enjoy her last minutes while I answered her questions about how hot the water was in the tap. Now, it was clear to me that living in this time with a soon-to-be two-year-old toddler was going to be much harder than I could ever have imagined.

“Let’s get into your dress and then you can sleep as I promised you,” I was saying while I was helping her get her into her new clothes. “Feels good?”

“Mhhm.”

“Fine, let's go back to bed.”

We went back to our room, put her into the bed and covered her with a soft blanket. Before she closed her eyes sat up and gave me a hug and a kiss and she said something I had never heard from her:

“Love you,” she whispered and I pulled her closer to me.

“I love you too, Faith. I hope you know it.” She nodded and went smitten. “Mama’s going to take a bath after you fall asleep.”

“No. Go wi’ ye.”

I started to caress her reddish-brown curls with my fingers. She would turn two next month and now, at that very moment, she acted like being an older child. If she's so caring now, what will happen later? She meant to be a big sister and she will be the best, I thought.

“You know Mama’s old enough to take care of herself but thank you, Faith.” 

You are your father’s daughter,  I almost said but I swallowed it back. 

“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep,” I was saying and at the same time I was sitting down to the edge of the bed.

“Sory?”

I promise I’ll buy you a book to read a story from it as soon as I have a job and some money and we will be alright. I will do everything to ensure you a happy childhood. It’s the last thing I can do for your Da,  I thought and I bursted in tears when I thought of him.

“Of course. Did you know that you and I share a name?” She shook her head, surprised. “When you were born I let Da to name you. One of your middle names is Sorcha . It’s Gaelic, it means ‘light’ or ‘bright’. It’s my name, too but it’s a French form of that. You could have heard Da praying and using this word.”

I always wanted to tell her where her name came from; what was in meaning and about that her father named her. We came from far away but we must have remembered where we started.

“What did you want to say?”

After I was convinced Faith had fallen asleep I went to have a bath myself and I quite enjoyed it. When I was lying in foam and bubbles my memories drifted me away, back to the 18th century where or when my heart truly belonged. I recalled the first time Jamie had taken me to the stones, I almost chose a hot bath over him. 

Mrs Graham and I were sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, sipping tea and eating biscuits. The question had been in my mind for hours now. 

“I have news about yer first husband.”

“What would that be?”

She took a deep breath before she said what’s the thing. “He remarried last December. He and her wife are living in Oxford after he applied for the job as a history professor at the university. I’m so sorry, Claire. He won’t come for you.”

Chapter Text

And he couldn’t do anything to make it alright or a little better. Claire was alone and he was on the other side of the stone—also alone. He knew he must do something. How could he save her when she was two hundred years in the future? 

“Are you feeling better, milord?” Fergus asked as he sat down on the chair next to his bed.

“Aye, Fergus,” he said, even though it wasn’t true. Physically he felt better, but his mind had been in a perfect chaos since he learnt that Claire was alone in the world.

“It’s not true, is it?”

Fergus always had been such an observing child. Although, it wasn’t a surprise; he must have been a quite good observer because a very long time ago—felt like a lifetime ago—he was a pickpocket before he hired him. And slowly Fergus became a part of their family. He always felt like a son to him even though he wasn’t by blood but he was by soul. 

“You’re missing milady and Faith, aren’t you?”  he questioned and Jamie nodded slowly. “Will milady come back?”

“No, she willna be back, nor Faith. We…” he started but he had realised soon that it wouldn’t have been a good idea if he told Fergus about time travelling.

“What? Are you hiding things? Why did you send them away? I could protect them, while you’re recovering.”

He wanted to say: Aye, I’m hiding things from you. It’s not because I dinna trust ye. It’s because… things are complicated.

“I ken, mon fils. You’d have protected them no matter what. But listen, where I sent them there 's no’ comin’ back. She thinks I’m dead.”

“Why did you do that? Why does she think that? I’ll be frank with you, Milord.”

“Ye’re always one.”

“Will you tell me what's going on? Please. I want to understand it. I need to know why you sent away the only mother-figure I’ve ever known. I like your sister, Mistress Murray, I do, but she is not milady. I took care of Faith like my petite sister and I felt like she’s my sister even though she wasn’t by blood. You and milady gave me a home, a family, things I could have never imagined and now… Everything feels hopeless, bleak. I don’t say I–” He was speaking faster and faster, so Jamie stopped him:

“Stop, mon fils! Stop it now! I understand. I ken it hurts ye, I truly am. C’mere,” he opened his arms and pulled the heartbroken boy, who missed his mother and sister, closer to his chest. “Shh, lad, dinna weep. Tha d’ athair an seo. Tha mise an seo. Bheir mi cùram dhut airson do mhàthair. Nì mi a h-uile càil gus do chumail sàbhailte.”  Jamie whispered in his ears, the Gaelic words poured out of his mouth like Whisky. 

Even though he had no idea what Milord had said to him, he was grateful to him because Fergus knew it was something to calm him down.

“Fergus, come in. I considered things and I need to tell ye something. Something about milady.”

Finally, he decided to tell him their—his and Claire’s—secret about the future, about Claire, about everything that he had to know. It was hard to talk about her, where she was and also talking about this with Fergus, not even his sister. 

“She's coming back?”Fergus  questioned; Jamie had seen how hope and faith sparkled in his eyes. He really hoped that Claire was going to come back to Lallybroch.

“No, it's about where she is.”

“So, you trust me with your secret?” he was asking while he was sitting down on the chair. He knew he had to sit when Milord told him the story about milady’s whereabouts. Milord was hiding it, that means it must be hard to talk about that. 

“Aye, mon fils. I trust you with all my heart.”

He sat down too. In his hands there was a glass of Whisky even though it was too early for a drink. He took a long sip before he started the story. Then, he put down the glass, took a deep breath and started with the beginning:

“It's been almost two years since ye came to Scotland. I think ye have heard folktales, ballads and things that folks believe.”

“Oui, milord.”

“Good. There's a story of the Woman o’ Balnain. I’ve never believed in that story before I met milady. She was—is—different. She has a special knowledge in healing, ye ken.”

“What's that story about?”

He was curious. He had never heard about the Woman of Balnain. He had heard stories about monsters, water horses, mythical creatures but the Woman of Balnain? Never. 

“There's a song. It’ll explain better than I ever could.”

I am a woman of Balnain,

The folk have stolen me over again,

the stones seemed to say

I stood upon the hill, and wind did rise,

and the sound of thunder rolled across the land,

I placed my hands upon the tallest stone

and travelled to a far, distant land,

where I lived for a time among strangers

who became lovers and friends

But one day, I saw the moon came out

and the wind rose once more,

so I touched the stones

and travelled back to my own land

and took up again with the man I had.

“So, milady is one of them? She can travel through the stones? So as Faith?”

“Aye,” he nodded.”I'm sorry, mon fils that I kept as a secret. She asked me not to tell anyone.”

In this time only three people know the truth: he, Murtagh and now Fergus. From the moment he came inside Jamie knew he would believe him. He could say anything, the lad would believe him without a word. 

“Why didn't you follow her?”

He asked the same thing that he had been asking himself since that day he sent Claire and Faith forward to the future. He wanted to go. Badly. He could have done anything to be with them. He could have done anything to bring his whole family to the other side of the stones. It would have been certainly safer for all of them—without wars, hunger, violence and danger.

“Because I canna,” he murmured. His throat tightened, he could barely speak. “Only certain people, on certain days, could travel. If I could I would. If everyone could travel, then I’d bring you, too. We’d have a happy life there.”

“What if you try? She needs you,” Fergus suggested. It wasn’t easy for him to give such advice but he must have tried. All he wanted was to see Milord happy again, surrounded by the people who he loved the most. 

“You also need me. I promised you I will always keep you safe,” Jamie added. 

He was torn between the family here he had and the family on the outside of the stones. Deep in his heart he knew he wanted to go there, find her, find them and live happily ever after because nothing hurt more than living a life without them.

“Yes, you did. But sometimes, there are cases when you have to change your promises. Milady and Faith need you more than I do.”

“I canna go. I canna leave you alone without your family.”

“Don't worry, milord. I'll take care of myself. I always did.”

Despite the fact that he didn't want to take care of himself again, he would do it again and again to make sure Milord was happy. Nothing more mattered to Fergus.

“No. I willna leave you here,” he objected, standing up. 

He paced nervously up and down the room.  Jamie knew he shouldn't even have thought about the chance to follow Claire, but after his dream, the back of his mind He realized that he was the only one who could keep her afe and loved. 

“Yes, you will. For milady. After all they're your blood.”

“You're stubborn like a Fraser, Fergus Fraser. You're worthy to call yourself proudly a Fraser.”

It was the first time he called him a Fraser. It was the first time that Jamie gave him his name. Many, many times before he had called Fergus his son, but this time, he took a step forward. He was ready, worthy and trustworthy and more to give him his family's name—the same name he gave to his daughter.

The silence was getting longer between them, thinking, but Fergus broke the it:

“So, you go milord?” 

“I dinna ken. At the same time my heart wants to go and stay wi’ ye and my sister’s family.”

“As long as you remember us, the people who you leave behind, then we will never be forgotten. We will live forever because you and milady remember us,” he said softly, biting his lower lips in pain, fearing he was going to burst into tears.

“Ye’re a wise lad, mon fils.”

Fergus knew Milord had already decided to follow Milady to the unknown—to the future. He knew Jamie didn't want to break his heart by saying he was going. Yes, it broke his heart, the fear he would lose all of his family—his mother-and-father-figure and his petite sister. 

“When are you going?”

“Few weeks, but dinna fash, I will always be wi’ you.”

Jamie saw that Fergus bursted in tears, so he stepped closer to him, pulling him closer and closer to his chest. Jamie involuntarily stroked his back. It was a small movement, but it showed more than just a motion. He’d felt relaxed and safe in my arms. Sometimes, Fergus reminded him of Claire. His light brown wild curly hair, he was wise and he was determined to keep his loved ones safe. All of a sudden Fergus truly became a member of their wee family.

“Then, I have to enjoy my last weeks with you, milord,” he said quietly, still crying.

“If I leave, you have to keep Lallybroch safe, until wee Jamie is not anymore wee, ye have an eye on this estate. As my son, in my eyes, ye are the laird of this estate.”

“Truly, milord?”

“But it has to stay between us. Officially, this land belongs to wee Jamie, but if I go and I know you're taking care of it, I'll know it's in good hands.”

“Oui, milord,” he murmured, using the dark sky outside as an excuse to leave and think about everything that happened in the past hours.” I leave you to rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, mon fils”

Just as he closed his eyes the dream came from him. It was like a poison— a deathly one. First, he didn’t understand what was going on; he had only seen images and pictures. The pictures weren’t connected to one another, but when they did he saw them. It was different from his dreams before.

She was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, her face in her hands. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she looked thinner—worn, even though the child was growing in her womb. She whispered his name, not to the room, but like a prayer. “Jamie… I miss you.”

Then he heard a sound—a small, muffled sob.

He turned and saw Faith—barely two years old—curled up in a bed too modern for his understanding, clutching a stuffed rabbit. Her curls are messy, her cheeks damp. She sniffles and whispers, “Mama, where’s Da?”

Claire gathered her in her arms and rocked her, but her voice trembled. “He’ll find us. He promised me.”

Jamie could feel their grief in his bones. Not just see it—feel it.

Suddenly Faith looked up. Her eyes—his eyes—locked onto his. She reached out a hand toward him.

“Dada?”

He woke up gasping, trembling. It couldn’t be true, he said himself. It just could have been. Faith had seen, felt his presence. It was something that he couldn’t explain even himself. It hadn't felt real.

Chapter Text

May, 1945 

Frank Randall sat down on the couch, taking deep breaths again and again.

In and out.

In and out.

In and out. 

His wife had disappeared two weeks ago. The last time he saw her, they promised they'd see each other at dinner.

He had never seen her again. That day, the last time he said goodbye to her—though he had never thought, even in his most insane dreams— it was the last time. When he heard her voice, kissed her cheek and saw the light brown curls and those beautiful angel eyes.

She was gone. No one knew where she was. Frank Randall believed his wife was kidnapped. Taken by people, taken by without her consent. He ached for his wife. But she didn't come back for him.

She was wanted for ransom and also the man who he had seen the day before she had disappeared. 

The Scot. He was wearing traditional clothing. He didn't seem like he was living in today’s world. Frank couldn't even explain what he had seen that night. Was it a ghost or something else? Something supernatural? Something that scared him.

Even though his rational mind said it could not have been a ghost, he remembered that unexplainable feeling when that man turned around and walked past him. He should have felt the hem of his dress touch his or something, but he didn't. And when he walked past him… He didn't want to think about it, because he shivered when he thought that. Frank had turned around and not seen that figure in the kilt.

He never believed in ghosts or other magical creatures but it felt real. It wasn’t like a hallucination. It was there.

It had been two weeks or so since he last saw the highlander. He had never come back to haunt him. Frank was sure that the Scottish barbarian had something to do with his wife's disappearance. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

In and out.

In and out.

In and out.

It didn’t work. It didn’t calm him down. It didn’t help. Nothing could help. The only thing could have worked if he had got his wife back and lived happily after, after they’d have reconnected properly. 

But since there was no sign of his wife it stayed a dream. There wasn’t a day when he didn’t go to the police, hoping they found her or the Scottish barbarian. He knew one day his Claire would come back to him and live the life they planned before the war. 

People around Inverness, police officers believed the Scottish barbarian was her lover and she planned to leave Frank behind, starting a new life with him. This was why she left the car near the hill-the villagers believed it was a fairy hill where people often disappeared. They wanted to believe that the fairies took her away, at least that was what the police officers said. Frank didn’t believe them, it was a silly fairytale for kids like Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy. It was double-trouble and nothing more. He strongly believed his wife was captured and taken away from him to somewhere else and she couldn’t get back but one day he would find her and take her home.

Months and months had passed since Claire Randall was abandoned and there were no signs of her. She disappeared and never returned like she had never existed. He started to give up hope that he would see her again, in this life and hold her in his arms once again. He started to believe people who said she had truly gone with her Scottish lover who she met during the war. Even though Frank believed her when she said she had never been unfaithful to him on their last night together, but… The folks talked. A lot. They believed all the supernatural stuff which were too wild, too unrealistic to believe them as a realist.  

The days were as same as the Whisky he drank every night before bed. 

One day, in the middle of the summer something had changed. Something happened that gave him a little hope.

 It is strange how things work. One day you sit on the couch, cuddling with your wife, the laughter fills the room, then on the other day, you sit alone and wait for the police to find her. To find her safe without scars or something even worse.

He was in his room when he heard that Reggie, his old friend and someone else were arguing in the kitchen. He didn't intend to overhear the conversation, but the walls were thin in the old house.

“He must know the truth,” said the woman, who most likely sounded like Reggie’s housekeeper, Mrs Graham.

“This is not the truth. You believe in that but it's only double-trouble.”

“He must know what happened to his wife,” she argued when Frank stepped into the kitchen.

“Tell me, Mrs Graham, what happened to my wife?”

“Mrs Graham,” Reggie placed the palm of his hand on her arm, but she shook it off.

“I'll tell him the truth I believe ‘tis. Even if it costs my job.

Then she offered Frank to take a seat while she prepared to make tea. When it was ready he sat down opposite to him and began to tell the truth she believed in. She started with a story with ancient stone circles all around the world. From where folks believed people could vanish on certain days—to another time in the past or the future—when the veil of time was thinner than other ordinary days. After that she explained the importance of the standing stone circles, she continued with the story of the Woman of Balnain who also travelled through time by touching the tallest stone in the centre of the circle. The strangers she met became lovers and friends, then when the wind rose again, she touched the stone and went back to her own time.

“... I think the same happened to yer wife, ye ken. Ye said she wanted to go back to the stones when she found the flowers. Perhaps, she walked down the hillside but no' here, in 1945 but at another time.”

“If it's true, where is she?” Frank asked, hastily. 

He didn't understand why, but she believed her, that Mrs Graham told the truth about Claire, about her whereabouts. It sounded unreal, absolutely impossible, but it was Scotland. Everything could happen here.

“I don't ken, Mr Randall. Perhaps, ye'll find her in a document. Ye're a historian,” she suggested, and without a word, saying ‘thank you’ Frank left the kitchen.

Sitting in his car, he stepped onto the gas pedal and then he raced to the place where mystical and whimsical things could happen: the stone circle—called Craigh na Dun. Where they found the car Claire had driven before her disappearance.

As he was running up the hillside, roaring his wife's name again and again. It sounded like chanting, but he was determined to find her, to bring her home and to build a life with her, here in this bloody time. 

“Claire!” he cried out again, until his throat started to hurt. But there was no sign of her, or her coming back to him.

And then all of sudden, he heard her voice, shouting his name behind the tallest stone. At first, he believed his mind was playing a wicked game with him or the other options: he wanted to hear her voice so much that he hallucinated it. Frank heard Claire's voice again and touched the stone but nothing happened. 

He wasn't that certain kind of person about whom Mrs Graham told me and it wasn't an extraordinary day when the gate of the veil of time opened and allowed those extraordinary people to travel back and forth in time.

Chapter Text

Some days later he packed all his stuff and left Reggie's house for Oxford applying for the job as a university professor. He was sitting on the train, travelling to England when he realised he had left Claire’s belongings at Reggie's house. Even though he wanted to keep her things as a memory of her—at least until then she would come home—he couldn't go back. It was too late to head back to the town he had never wanted to go back to. All those painful memories, the hopeless searching for Claire… It wouldn’t have been all right if he had gone back. Her suitcase had to stay there — if she came back, then she would go to Reggie’s house, and she would have clothes , he thought.

Frank Randall had always been a methodical man—precise, rational, and deeply rooted in facts. But when Claire vanished, reason deserted him; believed that fairytale that Mrs Graham told him without questions. What remained was a hollowed-out version of the man he had once been, believing in folktales and magic stones; kept alive by obsession and the unbearable hope that somehow, somewhere, she still existed. 

Not dead. Not gone. Just... misplaced. Hidden by time. Fallen through another time. But what if she never came back? What if the past was her future?  

He combed through records like a scholar chasing myth, scouring the brittle pages of parish books, court documents, estate ledgers, and burial registers. He haunted archives across the Highlands and beyond—places where the air smelled of mold and dust, and the past whispered from every shelf. In Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen and Glasgow—he searched, at least when he had time: the next summer after Claire vanished. It had been a year and three months since then. He taught history at Oxford University which he loved but since Claire disappeared life, of course, was not the same as it once had been.

He developed a reputation among the clerks and archivists as the polite but haunted Englishman with a storm behind his eyes. No one ever asked whom he was looking for. Somehow, they seemed to know it wasn’t someone living. But Frank Randall knew, believed his Claire was alive and somewhere in a place where she was safe.

The months bled together, like ink on the paper . The outside world lost its color— it had been lost since Claire was gone—replaced by parchment yellows and ink-stained blacks.

He traced the name Beauchamp through generations, tracked any possible woman who could have been Claire, and chased down the smallest thread until it dissolved in his hands. Every time he came close—some midwife’s apprentice, some merchant’s daughter—it always slipped away. Claire was a ghost in the records, never quite appearing, never fully absent. He began to wonder if he was chasing a mirage—an imagination created by grief.

And then, there was Edith .

He met her by accident in the Register House in Edinburgh. She was cataloging old land transactions for her thesis, and their worlds collided—literally—when she dropped her purse and sent Frank’s precisely ordered research tumbling across the floor. She apologised lavishly.. He waved it off. But the next day, Edith brought him a cup of tea and asked what he was looking for. That simple question cracked something open in him.

They talked. A lot. Endlessly. Frank felt like finding himself, his manhood again.

First, they talked about research, then about loss. He never said Claire’s name—not at first—but Edith understood without needing details. She was quiet, thoughtful, and never pushed. She met his grief with gentleness, not pity. She never made him feel pity for him. She was different in every way. In her presence, the relentless ache dulled just slightly. He began to look forward to her soft smile, her steady gaze, her way of grounding him when the search threatened to consume what was left of his soul.

Still, he continued. He told himself he was close. That he had to find the truth before he could truly move on.

And then one icy January morning, deep in the archives of a Highland kirk where he’d chased a dead-end reference to an old birth registry, he found it. The echoes of the kirk reminded him of things. Things that happened ten years ago. It was the same kirk when Claire and he got married many-many years ago. Before the war started, before everything had changed.

 He wasn’t even sure why he opened the ledger—it was from the wrong parish, the wrong year. But something about it called to him.

The page was worn thin, the ink faded, but the names were clear enough.

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp.
James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.
Marriage recorded, July 1743.

Frank froze.

The silence around him thickened, pressing in against his ribs like a vice. He read the names again, then again. There was no mistaking it. This wasn’t a coincidence. This wasn’t imagination or grief.

She had married someone else.

Not in their time. But in another.

His hands trembled slightly as he closed the ledger and sat back. He felt the old ache stir again, but it was different now—less like an open wound, more like the echo of a scar. He wasn’t angry. Not really. There was no betrayal here. Claire had found herself in another life, in another century. She had a lover—another husband. She had lived. And she had not returned.

That night, Frank returned to the small inn where Edith waited for him by the fire, reading a book with a blanket draped over her lap. She looked up, concerned at the look in his eyes.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just crossed the room and sat beside her.

After a long pause, he said softly, “I think... I’ve found what I was looking for.”

Her hand slid into his, no questions asked.

For the first time in a very long while, Frank Randall looked forward—not back.

Chapter Text

They sat together in the quiet of the inn’s sitting room, the fire burning low. Edith had put her book aside the moment he spoke. She had never pressed him for answers, but her hand remained in his—willing, steady, present. Frank stared into the flames for a long time, gathering the courage to say aloud the one truth he’d never dared to share.

“I never told you… what happened to my wife,” he began slowly. His voice wasn’t bitter or broken anymore—just tired, like an old door swinging open after years sealed shut. “Not really.”

Edith turned slightly toward him, her eyes soft and patient.

“She didn’t leave me for another man,” he said, almost to himself. “At least… not in any way the world would recognize.”

There was a pause. Frank took a breath, eyes still fixed on the fire.

“She disappeared. One day, in the Highlands. We were… researching my genealogy. It was a calm afternoon. She went for a walk, searching for a flower—forget me not—she saw the place where she vanished. So she had gone and she never came back.”

A beat. He could feel Edith watching him—not judging, just listening. She never judged him, she had no reason to judge a man like Frank. He was lost, broken, searching for someone who was most likely gone. Edith gave her comfort and tenderness, that was everything she could do.

“At first, I thought she’d been taken. Then, perhaps, she’d lost her memory by an accident. I searched every logical possibility. The police were useless. The local authorities shrugged it off as an accident. But I knew Claire. She wouldn’t just vanish.”

His hand curled slightly tighter around hers.

“There was a woman, Claire liked to talk with. She had another idea where my wife was. That's why I started digging into the old Celtic folklore. Highland myths. Superstitions I used to scoff at. But nothing else made sense. The woman told me old stories—about stones. Standing stones. People disappear near them. I dismissed it at first. But the more I learned…”

He trailed off, then turned to look directly at Edith. “She didn’t leave. She travelled. Through time. Back into the past.”

Edith didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. She just looked at him with wide, calm eyes.

“I know how it sounds. Madness. Fantasy.” He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “But I found proof. Records. Her name. Married, living in the eighteenth century. Married to a Highlander.”

“Jamie Fraser,” Edith said softly. Not looking up. Frank held her chin, asking her to look up, stole his gaze. 

Frank blinked.

“I saw the name,” she explained. “On your notes. Just as you came back from the kirk. You didn't say it, but I figured out.

He let out a long, slow exhale. “Yes. Him. She married him. She stayed.”

There was silence. Frank braced himself for disbelief, or concern. Instead, Edith reached over and placed her other hand gently over his.

“She loved him,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And you still looked for her.”

“I had to know,” he whispered. “I had to see it. I had to believe she was safe, that she chose it freely. That she didn’t vanish into nothing.”

Edith nodded, her eyes glistening just a little.

“And now?” she asked.

Frank looked at her for a long moment, then lifted her hand to his lips.

“Now,” he said, “I can stop looking.”

And for the first time in years, he truly meant it. 

The papers lay on the desk like a final confession—quiet, damning, and unavoidable.

Frank stared at them for a long time, unmoving, as the shadows of the study crept further across the walls. The divorce decree had been waiting for days, untouched in its folder, hidden at the back of the filing cabinet like a relic no one wanted to claim. Her name— Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Randall —was typed neatly beside his.

Only her signature was missing. He planned it. He had been planning it since he had finally realised Claire would never come back. Her life was laid in the past. With another man.

He ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled a long, tired breath. He had waited. God, how he had waited. He waited through sleepless nights, through police reports, through endless searches and questions no one could answer. He waited through grief, denial, and finally—through silence.

And then he waited still. Even after discovering the truth. After reading her name in that Highland parish ledger beside another man’s. Even after finding out she had married again, in another time, and never returned.

He had carried the weight of her absence like a phantom limb. But he wasn’t a fool. Claire was not coming back.

Not now. Not ever.

The pen in his hand felt heavier than it should have. He had never forged anything in his life—never lied on paper, never blurred the lines between truth and action. But this… this was not for vengeance. Not for convenience. It was a necessity. A bureaucratic door that had no other key.

He practiced first. On a scrap of paper. He had watched her sign her name a thousand times—on letters, postcards, grocery lists. Her signature had a particular rhythm. A strong, clear C , a quick loop into the l , the B of Beauchamp tall and proud, as though she still bore her father’s name with a soldier’s precision.

It took him six tries. On the seventh, it was perfect.

He picked up the actual form. His own signature had been in place since he got home papers weeks ago. His pen hovered above the line meant for her.

He hesitated.

“Forgive me,” he murmured under his breath. “This is the only way.”

Or thank me, if you ever decide to come back, he thought.

And then he signed: Claire E. Beauchamp Randall.

The ink dried in silence. When it did, he slid the paper into its envelope, sealed it, and leaned back in his chair with a breath that felt both like breaking and relief. 

Tonight, he would go upstairs and hold Edith’s hand. Not as a man who did something bad. As a man who did something for them. For their future together.

Summer, 1947

The garden was blooming with early roses, their scent drifting lazily in the summer air. Edith knelt among them, wearing a wide straw hat and a pair of muddied gloves. The sun caught in her hair as she trimmed the faded petals, humming softly—something classical, familiar, maybe Bach.

Frank stood at the kitchen window, watching her. Five months had passed since he had sent in the divorce paperwork. The court had accepted it without question. No one looked twice. Even though she was missing for two years, her forged signature was perfect.

And now—he was free.

But freedom wasn’t what he had expected. It was quieter. Heavier. Like standing on a blank page, pen in hand, unsure where to begin writing. The ink of the pen messed his hands, while thinking where to begin his new, quieter life.

And yet, he was certain of one thing: he wanted to write the next chapter with Edith.

He stepped out into the garden, hands in his pockets, walking slowly toward her. She looked up at the sound of his steps, brushing hair from her cheek with the back of a gloved hand.

“Afternoon,” she said, smiling. Her voice was like a bird singing on a beautiful spring day when the sun is shining and everything gains its colour after a heavy winter. Edith was the spring herself in Frank’s eyes.

“Afternoon,” he echoed. “You’re conquering the roses again, I see.”

“They are beautiful. I couldn’t leave them here, when we can put them in a vase at our home. ”

Frank nodded, then reached into his pocket and withdrew a small box—simple, dark velvet, worn slightly at the edges. She didn’t notice at first. She was focused on the thorns.

“Edith,” he said softly.

She looked up again—and froze when she saw the box.

He opened it, revealing a modest but elegant gold ring. The diamond was small but clear, flanked by two sapphires. It wasn’t grand. But it was honest. Earnest.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

“I know it’s been a long road,” he began, voice quiet. “Longer than either of us expected. And I know I haven’t always been… whole. But you’ve waited. You’ve been patient, more than I deserved. You’ve been home to me in ways I didn’t think I’d find again.”

He took a slow breath, kneeling—awkwardly, because of the stiffness in his knees—and held the ring up to her.

“I don’t want to spend another year—another day—not knowing if I’ll grow old with you. So… will you marry me?”

She stared at him for a long moment, tears gathering in her eyes.

Then she laughed—a soft, disbelieving sound—and pulled her gloves off.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course, yes.”

She helped him to his feet, and he slid the ring onto her finger, his hands trembling slightly.

They embraced in the warm, golden light of late afternoon, surrounded by roses and silence and the quiet unfolding of something entirely new.

In the distance, a breeze passed through the garden like a breath released—gentle, forgiving, free.

Chapter Text

Some hours had passed after Mrs Graham told me about Frank and the fact he was remarried. I didn’t feel rage. Or betrayal. Not at all. When Mrs Graham said to me first I went numb and couldn’t even say a word. It was shocking, but I had questions and  I hoped she could find answers for them.

I knew something was wrong the moment Mrs. Graham opened the door. I knew there was something else that she meant to tell me but she had no words in her mind to tell me. I stepped inside the sitting room, clutching Faith close against my hip, and everything around me—the ticking clock, the scent of her old lavender perfume, the warmth of the hearth—felt suddenly unfamiliar, like I no longer belonged in this time, in this life. It wasn’t the way I planned my life with a toddler and with a soon-to-be newborn—far away from their father and family. I wasn’t ready to be their whole family, they would know all alone. It was much harder to make than I could ever imagine.

She didn’t say it outright—not at first. I had to ask for it. Her eyes softened in that way only she could manage, the weight of what she had carried was unbearable. We sat in the sitting room, just like we had all those years ago when she first whispered to me about the stones.

But this time, she wasn’t talking about ancient paths or forgotten gateways. She was talking about now. 

About Frank.

“I didn’t want to be the one to tell ye, lass,” she began softly, folding her hands in her lap. “But I think it’s time to ken it.”

My heart stilled. I shifted Faith onto the couch beside me, suddenly cold despite the fire from the hearth which wrapped around the room. “What is it?” I asked. “Is he—did something happen?”

Mrs. Graham looked at me with that heavy, sorrowful kindness only the old possess, the kind shaped by decades of seeing too much. She felt uncomfortable telling the news. I did not blame her, it was hard for her to tell me about Frank, that he wouldn’t come to me to be my husband again since he had another wife. That I was all alone that Faith and the other baby had. 

“He divorced ye, Claire. A year ago or so.”

I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.

The words fell like stones into the pit of my stomach. Hard. Irrevocable.

I blinked. “What?”

She reached over and gently took my hand. “He waited, love. For years, he waited. He searched fer ye until he found ye. When he found yer marriage contract wi’ yer Jamie, he… found someone and he let ye go and from that moment he didna  look back.”

I shook my head. Not in disbelief, but because I already knew. I had always known it was a possibility. But hearing it… that made it real.

“And now?” I whispered, though I already felt the answer building in my throat like smoke.

Mrs. Graham’s voice was a thread. “Ye ken, dear, I told ye hours ago. But I understand, ‘tis quite a shock for ye. ”

For a moment, the world tipped sideways. We hadn’t been lovers for a long time. But he had still been mine —part of my life, of who I was. To know he’d taken that final step—signed those papers, spoken vows to someone else—it felt like the last thread had been pulled loose.

“What’s her name?” I asked slowly.

“Edith. She’s kind. Steady. A good match for him, I think.”

I nodded. Slowly. Woodenly.

“It must be sound strange but she's a better match than ye’ve ever had. Dinna misunderstand me, dear. Ye just like the adventurous way o’ the life, being the leader, and what ye have told me about yer Jamie, then he was yer perfect match. I ken when I see love, dear. I’ve seen the love, in yer eyes when ye have talked ‘bout him.”

Faith stirred beside me, small fingers curling around mine. I looked down at her—my daughter, Jamie’s daughter.

“He had every right,” I murmured. “I left him. I disappeared.”

“You were pulled away,” she said gently. “And I believe ye’ve suffered for it, no’ for a long time, but you did. So has he. There’s no villain here, Claire. Just time. That separated ye two for good.”

I nodded again. I couldn’t speak. She was right. I couldn’t argue with that fact. She was a sagacious woman.

“How did he manage to make his marriage legal to this Edith?” 

“I don’t think it’s right tae talk ‘bout it. ‘Twas a rough day for ye,” she objected, and now I knew: it was something that I would never forgive him. Or if I would… That would be an outcome that wouldn’t suit my character.

“You remember the marriage contract he found?” she asked, and I had a strong thought about the way he had done it. I nodded, waiting to continue, to learn about the truth. “He forged yer signature from that paper. That time she was not gentle. It was raw and at first I didn’t understand what she had just said. 

Oh. So that’s it, Frank, I thought. That's how you did it, right?”

At that time I didn’t know how to feel about it, but perhaps… Perhaps, just perhaps, one day, when the time came I would say “Thank you!” to him.

Later, when I got all my answers, I was sitting on an armchair in the library. I was alone, the silence wrapped around my soul and body. Luckily, Faith got tired, so I had the opportunity to put her down sleeping. 

My fingers lightly tracing the edge of a folded newspaper someone had left behind. I knew I shouldn’t have looked at it, nor even seen it, but there it was. I was magically attracted to it in some ways. In the announcements section—deaths, births; small, unassuming, printed between a retirement notice and a charity dinner ad.

Professor Franklin W. Randall weds Edith M. Thomas
A quiet ceremony was held in Oxford at the Registry House…

The words blurred, then sharpened again, as if my mind couldn’t quite hold them steady. My stomach dropped. I wasn't angry at him, he moved on, he found a life that he would like to live.  

My hands trembled as I folded the paper shut. There was some kind of a tightness in my throat, like all the sorrow had compressed itself into something dense and heavy, impossible to swallow.

I thought of the last time I saw him—the day when I disappeared. Trying to imagine his voice, calling my name and asking me to meet at dinner time. It never happened. We never had dinner that evening. Instead, I was almost raped and kidnapped and also put back a certain dislocated shoulder to the joint,

Did he ever hate me for leaving? It wasn’t a question, of course he did. If it wasn’t hate, then it was unbearable rage because I went missing.

Even though, I realised I wasn't in love with him anymore.

I finally felt how it felt for him when I was gone. My throat tightened, feeling sorrow for those men who were no longer in my life.

I pressed my palm against my chest and whispered, almost soundlessly, “I’m sorry. You deserved better.”

I left the library, heading back to Faith. She was sleeping in the middle of the bed. I changed into my nightgown, and lied beside her.

It had been a long day.

He asked me to move on and went back to Frank. I couldn't fulfill the latter, but I can do the former, like Frank did.

Perhaps, it’s time to move on with my life, too.

At the end of May, I found a flat where we could start our new life. When I learnt my inheritance from my parents and Uncle Lamb was untouched.

“Yer inheritance remained untouched,” said Mrs Graham a week before I purchased a home for us.

I gave a small nod—part relief, part sorrow—but didn't ask anything else about him. “Thank you,” and I never looked back. That day was the last time I heard of Frank.  

I decided to start looking for a flat which had enough room for Faith, myself and the baby. It wasn't big, but it was just ours. First, it didn't look like home , but after the first shopping tour, it was better than nothing.

I needed to find a job; my inheritance wasn't endless. It couldn't cover our living for too long, but for a short time, it was enough. Even though I always wanted to go to a medical school as soon as the war ended—it never happened, but from that I wanted to become a doctor. Now… I did not think I would ever go that far, being in a sole-parent family. But at least we had a roof above our head. A job could wait a little more. 

It was June when Faith and I decided to celebrate with a wee dinner that we moved to our flat. It wasn't extravagant, it was just a mother-daughter dinner.

“Would you help me with the cooking, lovie?” I asked Faith, as I put the ingredients on the kitchen counter. She gave a small nod, then tugged my skirt to pull her up.

“Up, Mama! Up!” She crawled up to my arm, and hid to me closely, trying to insist on not to put her down at the kitchen counter.

“Faith, please, I must use both of my hands to make ourselves a delicious dinner.”

Making dinner with a two-year-old is like trying to waltz with a hurricane—small, determined, and barefoot. She insisted on helping tonight. 

She was sitting on the counter for a while, then she had made a choice. She asked me to put her down and how could she help me, so I pulled the little wooden chair up to the counter and she climbed it like a mountain goat, all elbows and stubborn breath.  

I handed her a carrot to keep her busy. I gave her a bowl of water to wash the carrots and I let her play with the water. While I peeled potatoes, pretending not to look at her every moment to ruin her playing. The radio murmured in the background—soft static, then a swell of strings. 

The kitchen smelled like onions and boiled water. The kind of smell that clings to your clothes and hair and says, this is what home looks like now. I stirred the pot with one hand and held her hip steady with the other as she leaned far too close to the stove, eyes wide with curiosity and zero self-preservation. She kept asking questions I couldn’t quite understand—half-words and made-up sounds—and I nodded like I did. That seemed to satisfy her. She looked like she enjoyed cooking and helping me with it.

The kettle shrieked, and she shrieked back, delighted. It made me laugh. It was the first time since I got back, I laughed—frankly. I poured the water, made tea.

She dropped a carrot slice on the floor, stared at it solemnly, then handed it to me like a gift. I took it. Of course I took it. She was proud of her work, even if all she’d done was stir things that didn’t need stirring and eat half the ingredients before they made it to the pot. I let her set the table—one fork in the wrong place, one spoon upside down—and I praised her until she was fully blushed.

By the time we sat down, she was humming. No song in particular, just the kind of sound that comes from a full belly and a tired little heart. I watched her eat like it was the most important thing I’d done all day—because maybe it was.

She looked up at me with carrots in her teeth and reached for my hand across the table. I let her have it. Because even when the world is cracked and uncertain, some things—tiny, sticky fingers in yours—feel like the answer to everything.

When we finished dinner—she finally ate the carrots, which was a whole new thing—I just stared at her for a second, stunned. She’d refused them every time before, always with that dramatic scrunch of her nose like I was offering her poison. But tonight, no complaints. Perhaps, because she helped to prepare it. She chewed them like they were nothing. Like the world hadn’t shifted under my feet.

After that, everything moved in slow, practiced rhythm. I gave her a bath, warm and quiet, her little body relaxed against mine as I washed the day away from her skin. She was softer than anything. Sleepier too. I dried her off, dressed her in those pajamas with the worn-out sleeves, and carried her to bed.

We didn’t have enough furniture yet. Everything was primitive, but as long as we had a roof under our head we couldn't conplain. Her room still echoed with emptiness, but I was working on that—it smelled of fresh paint. So she’d been sleeping with me for the past week. Part of me didn’t mind. Of course it didn't. I didn't feel alone, helpless. She curled up beside me like she always belonged there, like she was still trying to climb inside my ribs and live right next to my heart.

She fell asleep fast tonight. Head on my arm, breath warm against my collarbone.

But I couldn't.

Even though I was exhausted—bone-deep, can't-keep-my-eyes-open kind of exhausted—I just lay there. Staring at the ceiling. The dark. The slow movement of shadows. I kept listening to her breathing, steady and soft, and telling myself that was enough. That we were safe. That I was doing okay.

But the thoughts came anyway. They always did.

They slid in through the cracks—quiet at first, then louder. Clawing. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t slow them down. They circled and circled until they closed in on me. Every mistake, every question, every what-if dragged their fingers down my spine like a warning. I tried turning on my side. I tried closing my eyes. I tried pretending none of it mattered.

It didn’t work.

When sleep finally did come, it wasn’t soft or kind. It crashed over me like a wave I didn’t see coming. And in it—him. Jamie.

His voice. His hands. The way he laughed. The way he looked at me like I was the only thing stepping on the world. I dreamed of him the way you dream of something you used to own and lost. Except this time, the dream didn’t let me hold him. It tore him away again and again and again.

The memories didn’t let me rest. They grabbed me by the throat and dragged me under.

Like they wanted to kill me.

And maybe, for a moment in that dream-heavy dark, I let them. 

I couldn't release myself from the memories.

Now, I knew what I had to do.

It's time to talk, love, like we always did, when we had a problem. See you soon!

Chapter Text

The morning was already warm by the time we got in the car. That early kind of summer warmth—soft, not yet heavy, with sun hanging low and golden, like it hadn’t decided whether to rise or stay dreaming. It was fairy-like, magical like Scotland decided not to rain today.

She climbed into the passenger seat without fuss, wearing her little cotton dress, hair sticking to the back of her neck where I'd missed a few curls with the brush. Her legs swung above the floor. She held her ragged rabbit in her lap, watching frost patterns on the window like they were stories. I didn’t speak much on the way there. She didn’t ask.

 She hummed—softly, quietly, something that I usually sang to her before falling asleep. It was tuneless but I recognized the traces of the song. If I was right, then it was one of my favourites, that I learnt from my mother when I was about her age or a year older. 

I didn’t tell her where we were going. I didn't think she would’ve understood, and maybe I didn’t want to hear the sound of it out loud either. I just drove. Hands tight on the wheel. Mouth dry. A teardrop sledded down on my cheek.

I swore to myself I’d never go back to that place. Not after the last time. Not after what I had lost there. The soil felt cursed, the air always thick with ghosts— my certain one. 

But love makes us a fool, but if I ever was foolish that’d be my “biggest” problem, and grief turns the impossible into obligation. If he died there—if that ground blanked him for the last time for the last time—I had to see it even if it was two hundred years later. I had to see where I had to leave him alone. I felt the urge to offer something. Even if it was just my breath. My words. My love until eternity. 

We parked just off the road, where the grass still held the weight of morning dew and the wind carried that strange, heavy silence—the kind that only lives near places like this. 

 I got out and opened her door, unbuckled her gently and lifted her onto my hip. She clung to me, head against my collarbone. She always does  when she senses something’s fragile. She could feel it, same as I did—something in the air was heavier and quieter.

“Da,” she mumbled slowly and my heart almost stopped.

“You feel Da?”

“Mhhm,” hummed softly, at first I didn’t even hear it. Her voice sounded like a whisper, an echo brought by the wind. Didn’t real; a thing that my imagination put there. Moreover, the whole situation felt unreal—how could my two-year-old possibly feel that? Was it her time traveller power, the ability, she owns?

“Right here, lovie?” I asked eagerly, wanting to know if he was really buried here. I didn’t know why I was absorbed with the question because I knew deep in my heart no matter what happened he was dead by now.

What would happen if I opened the door I shutted on the past? What would happen if I did research? What if I found him alive? Would I go back? Of course, said my heart. Of  course, I would go back to him and live happily ever after. Would that be that easy? Of course not. If I found him alive I had to think of the children. And that’s why I could never go back even if he was alive. I could not risk the life growing inside me… I could not risk the children again. It was safer there for them. 

And what of me?

Nothing is wrong with some research, right?

The clan marks stood quietly, screaming in the silence of those hopeless shouts who died on that day. They knew they were going to die, lose the war but they fought.  Only the name of the clan and the date remembered all too well what happened there, on the last dawn of the highlander culture. 

What if I gave poison to the Bonnie Prince before the battle? What if we could change the future? Would it be different? Would we be together? Or as we learnt the major events of history cannot be changed?

Wildflowers scattered here and there, unbothered by the history buried beneath them. 

There was nothing on the battlefield—but I heard the roaring in my ears, the clang of weapons, the roar of cannons, the scream of the wounded. 

Just space. Just wind.

This was the kind of place that looked too peaceful to carry the truth of what happened here. But it did. It carried it in silence, in the way even the birds didn’t sing too loudly.

I stepped carefully, as if the ground could still bleed. My shoes crushed the clover underfoot. Faith’s little fingers clutched my blouse, and I pressed my lips to her forehead.

“Here we are,” I said, more to myself than to her. “We came,” I sat down on the grass, placing the bouquet of forget-me-nots before the Fraser clan mark.

She looked up, blinking slowly, then tucked her head against my neck again. I held her tighter.

“I brought her,” I whispered. “Like I promised.”

The words caught. I swallowed.

“You didn’t even have a proper grave, did you, like one you would have deserved.” I murmured, to the wind, to him, to myself. “Just this. Just here.”

Faith leaned her head on my shoulder, thumb in her mouth now, quiet. I think she knew I needed stillness more than anything. 

“I never wanted to come back here,” I said. “I told myself I wouldn’t. But love makes a fool out of everything I thought I knew. And if I was a fool, then it doesn't matter. It doesn't. ”

The grass moved gently around our ankles. The heat hadn’t built yet, I didn't even see a dark cloud; I took it as a great sign. 

“I hope it didn’t hurt,” I whispered. “I hope it was quick. I hope you weren’t scared. You were never scared of death, weren't you? You always feared losing your loved ones—Jenny, Ian, Murtagh, Fergus, Faith… and me . You know, my love, sitting here, talking to you is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But here I am. I thought you'd love our company for a little while.”

I pressed my cheek to her soft curls and let the ache bloom. Faith plucked the grass and handed it to me. 

She had no idea where she was or what we were doing there, but that was more than okay.

“We’re okay,” I added after a while. “Both of our children are safe as you wished. We’re still breathing. It's  enough to survive.”

I pulled Faith closer to my chest, holding her to my heart, feeling her breathing and somewhere I was envious of her—she didn't understand what was going on; for her it was like every other day, nothing special at all, just walking around the town, being in nature. For her it wasn't about visiting her Da’s “grave”, it was something else that I couldn't define even if I had tried hard.

“She smiles in her sleep just like you. I think she usually dreams with you. I’m… well,  getting there—smiling, I mean. Some days. It’s hard to smile without you.”

And I sat there like that, holding her, until the sun was a little higher and the guilt felt a little quieter. I didn’t cry. Not here. But something broke loose in my chest and drifted out, maybe to him. 

Every movement of Faith’s brought back to the memory of Jamie. I tried to hold my tears back, but as the time, as the hours had passed it was getting harder and harder.

 I imagined what he’d say if he saw her now. If he saw me. I didn’t know if it would make him proud or sad or both.

“I feel like I failed you,” I murmured. “I couldn't fulfil your wish. I was stuck alone. But I'll make you proud, I promise. I'll show you that I can do it for the children,” I whispered, and I couldn't keep myself back. I started crying, even though I promised there wouldn't be tears. 

And I whispered, “And this baby… is growing. Seventeen weeks, can you believe it? I hoped that you'd be here with me, seeing this little one growing day by day.”

Faith stirred a little. Her hand found my collar. I kissed the top of her head where the honey brown curls sometimes turned into amber as the light hit it. 

“I’m still trying to fit in this century. But it's hard. The last time I had fallen through time I had help to fit in. But I can't complain, it's safer here,” I noted, thinking about what else I could say next. 

“I’m thinking about taking Gaelic lessons to teach the children as well. I wanted to ask you after the war, but… I want to show them their roots, where they came from. It's their inheritance from you and I do not want to take it away from them.”

I knew, if he was here, he would teach the children Gaelic by himself, wanting to give them their inheritance from his side of the family. Something special. Something Scottish. Something like Jamie.

“I miss you,” I said, barely breathing it. The words dropped into the ground like stones.

Then I kissed Faith's head again, it was something that calmed my mind down, my heart from bursting, my soul to ache.

I stood up, the Sun started to to fall below the horizon, and the clouds moved slowly above us. It was time to go.

Before we left, I bent down and touched the edge of the grave. Just my fingers on the stone. It wasn’t him, not really—but it was what we had. 

“I think I'll never say goodbye to you. I cannot close this chapter in my life. You'll always be a part of me even if you're with me or not. It's not a goodbye, it's an au revoir. We will come back,” I said, still touching the clan mark. I pulled my fingers through the word ‘Fraser’ like it was home once.

“I love you, soldier. More than you could have ever imagined. I rarely said it but you knew it from my acts. But here I am, saying, hoping, you hear it from heaven. “You are the love of my life. And you always will be,” I whispered and touched two of my fingers to my mouth, touching and benting the kiss down to the edge of the mark.

Then I  turned, and slowly carried her back to the car. It had been a long day for both of us.

The flowers behind us waved like they knew we would never come back.

Chapter Text

It was the 19th of June. Two days before the veil of time became thinner at the stone circle of Craig na Dun.

Even though he didn’t want to go back to the place where his life changed twice—first when Claire chose him over Frank, and the second, when he sent her back to her time, which he knew in the back of his mind it wasn’t her time anymore. Her place, their place with Faith was with him, even if it was dangerous but he always kept them safe. He would give anything and more to have them in his life once again. To hear their voice, see them laugh and bring everything back to the same that once it was. 

He allowed Fergus to accompany him on the journey to the faerie hill. If it worked, then it would be their last day together. He didn’t want to leave him like this, but Fergus tried to convince him otherwise. The lad said to him he had to try for milady and petite Faith. He also said not to think about him, he would be all right.

Fergus was right: he had to try. But if it meant to leave him behind… Jamie couldn’t imagine what life would look like without the son of his name. It would be different, of course, difficult, and… it didn’t seem fine. He could not leave him behind. How could he do that? He was a child, he couldn’t be alone. By himself again. His  place was with him and Claire as they promised him years ago. 

What if he could travel? What if Jamie could bring Fergus with him?  It sounded like a dream, a fairytale written in a book. 

He didn’t tell Jenny or Ian where he was going. They would try to stop him and he wouldn’t give in. He was headstrong for that. He had to try. 

“Won’t you tell Mistress Murray your secret?” Fergus asked, but Jamie shook his head.

“No,” he answered, and continued packing. “No’ in person. I left a letter.”

“Milord, she has  the right to know from you! Not from a letter,” Fergus objected, trying to bring Milord sense.

“She would have many questions and I dinna have time to answer them,” he shook his head immediately, not even listening to him. That bloody stubbornness of him, Fergus thought.

“You have two days,” Fergus pointed again. 

“Ye willna give up, mon fils, aye?”

“No, Milord. She has a right to know, no?” 

Jamie knew deep in his heart that Fergus was right about it. Jenny had the right to know Claire and his secret, but he was certain she would have more question that he could answer before he had to go.

“For what I have a right to ken?” Jenny stepped into the room with Kitty on her hip.

“Right, Jenny. I have tae tell ye somethin’ ‘bout Claire. The truth.”

Jamie stood at the edge of the hearth, one hand gripping the back of the old chair, his knuckles white. The fire had burned low, casting flickering light against the stone walls of the Lallybroch sitting room. Jenny sat opposite him, her face unreadable, arms folded tight across her chest as if bracing for a blow she could neither see nor name.

He had told her everything.

Every last impossible detail.

That Claire had come from another time. That she had not been born in the eighteenth century but far ahead—hundreds of years. That she knew things no healer should know, spoke of machines and cities, wars that hadn’t yet been fought. That she had vanished through the stones at Craigh na Dun, and that it had nearly killed him to let her go.

He hadn’t intended to say it—not like this, not all at once—but the weight of it had grown too heavy to carry alone.

And now, the silence between them stretched, thick and unmoving.

Jenny’s brow was furrowed, but not in disbelief. She wasn’t the type to cry out nonsense or call him mad. No, her eyes were steady, sharp as ever, as if she were examining a strange and terrible wound, deciding whether it could be stitched or had to be cut clean through.

Jamie swallowed hard. “Say something, Jenny.”

She stared at him, her jaw tight. Then, at last, she stood slowly and crossed to the table, pouring herself a measure of whisky with a hand that trembled just enough for him to notice.

He waited.

“I kent ye two were hiding something,” she said quietly, not looking at him. “I saw it on yer face.”

Jamie let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Jenny turned back to him, eyes glassy now, but still sharp. “And I thought mebbe—God help me—I thought mebbe she died. Or run away from you. But never this. Never…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Time travel.”

He nodded once. “Aye.”

She took a long drink, then set the cup down hard. “D’ye believe it?” she asked, voice raw. “E’ry word o’ it?”

“I do,” he said. “Wi’ every part o’ me. I saw her go. I felt it in my bones that day. And now… I’m goin’ back to her.”

Jenny stared at him again, this time not with doubt, but with something like awe—or fear.

“Jamie,” she whispered, “what sort o’ woman is she?”

Jamie looked down into the fire, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, aching and full of memory.

“She’s the bravest woman I’ve ever known,” he said. “And I’d go through hell itself to find her again.”

Jenny said nothing for a long moment. Then she nodded once and sat down heavily in the chair by the fire.

“Well,” she murmured, “I suppose it runs in the family.”

And Jamie finally let himself breathe.

“I never thought I’m sayin’ this, brother, but… I ken, if I try to hold ye back, ye will go. So, I willna hold ye back. Even if it means, I willna see ye ever again, then tell her I loved her like a sister.”

“I will, Jenny. She loved ye like a sister, too. Dinna ever forget it.”

“Go, brother, find the fire that missin’ yer eyes.”

So they’d gone. He and Fergus. He had only hours left to spend time with the son of his heart, the lad who made him a father even before Faith was born. 

The morning mist clung low over the hills as Jamie and Fergus rode side by side, the hooves of their horses muffled by the damp heather underfoot. They didn’t speak much, they didn’t need it. The silence wrapped around them, like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

The hillside of Craig na Dun rose in the distance, still and ancient against the gray sky—no more than a circle of stones to most, but to Jamie… It was a door. A wound. A hope. A promise.

The silence between them was full—filled with the things already said or waiting for the perfect time to be said. Fergus rode with his head slightly bowed, his dark curls damp with the morning dew, his eyes shifting occasionally toward Jamie, as if still half-expecting him to turn back.

But Jamie didn’t turn back. He was more than stubborn, more than determined to achieve his goal. He didn’t have a second thought. It was settled from the moment they had spoken about it. When Jamie told him the truth about Claire. She was never a thing that he would be thinking. If there was a choice to see her again in that life, then he moved everything to be with her again. Jamie knew Claire would do the same for him—and she had done it before. She had done everything to buy his soul back from the darkness after Wentworth. Now, it was Jamie’s time to show her he could travel through time to see her again.

He sat tall in the saddle, his shoulders stiff with tension, his hands steady on the reins. The wind stirred the edges of his plaid, the chill biting beneath the folds of his coat, but he barely noticed. His mind was already halfway through time.

“You’re certain?” Fergus asked quietly, his voice low enough not to disturb the stillness of the morning. Even though he knew Jamie was more than certain.

Jamie gave a small nod. “Aye. I’ve been certain since I realised ‘twas a mistake to let her go.”

Fergus swallowed, glancing toward the stones. They were closer now—imposing, silent. He had never touched them. Had never wanted to. But now, riding beside Jamie, part of him itched with curiosity and unease.

“Does she know about you going to her?” Fergus questioned, didn’t have a certain idea how time travelling worked. 

Jamie looked straight ahead. “I dinna ken. Hope she’ll mad wi’ joy when we meet. I’ve seen her, ken. In dreams, in… somethin’ more than dreams. And I ken if I do not try now—if I never go—I’ll spend the rest o’ my days wishin’ I had.”

Fergus didn’t answer at once. His hand brushed the hilt of his dagger, an old habit when nerves rose up in his blood. “And if it does not work? If the stones won’t take you?”

Jamie let out a breath. “Then I ride home. And try tae live wi’out my wife, wi’out my daughter.”

They reached the foot of the hill, and Jamie dismounted slowly, staring up toward the circle. The wind shifted, and in it came a faint sound—like a hum, like the earth itself held its breath.

“We have a wee bit o’ time, mon fils. I dinna have tae go right now.  I have time till dusk.”

“I don’t know what to say, Milord,” Fergus said softly, not looking up, fearing if he did, he would immediately burst into tears. And he didn’t want that, crying in front of Milord. What if he changes his mind? He would never forgive himself, if he didn’t go and find Milady and Faith.

“Look up, mon fils. It isna weak if ye cry. Ye ken, men cry, no’ as much as women, but they cry. When they love. When they lose someone,” he sniffed, holding Fergus’ chin with one hand and the other held his back. “I love ye like a son of my blood, I hate I have tae let ye alone, but I ken ye’ll be fine.”

They stayed for that for minutes, then he took a closed envelope out of his sporran.

“This is for you. But ye’re no’ to open it unless… unless yer heart tells ye it’s time."

Fergus frowned, taking it slowly, reverently, thoroughly.

"Is it a farewell, milord?"

Jamie met his eyes, pain flickering there.

"No. No’ a goodbye. ‘Tis an Au Revoir. We will see each other soon. ‘Tis a door. You’ll ken when to open it."

Fergus stared down at the letter, then tucked it inside his coat. A silence stretched again between them.

"I should be going with you.""And I should be staying. But we both ken what must be done. Ye keep the truth safe, mon fils. If ever the time comes to follow... ye’ll know,” Jamie said quietly.

They don’t embrace. They don’t need to. But there was a moment—a hand on a shoulder, a look—that said everything else.

“I will wait,” he said firmly. “Until you go. And if—if you do not return—I’ll see to Lallybroch. And I’ll make certain your nieces and nephews who their uncle was.”

Jamie turned to him then, eyes shining. “Merci, mon fils.”

They spent the day like that. Recalling all of their memories, talking about their time in Paris… It was getting harder for both of them to bid their au revoirs. It was much harder than it looked like. 

It was getting rather late. And he swore it was only a minute when he closed his eyes but… what he had seen was more than disturbing.

He dreamt again. It was a clear, vivid dream, this time he had only seen Claire; Faith wasn't there.

“I feel like I failed you. I couldn't fulfil your wish. I was stuck alone. But I'll make you proud, I promise. I'll show you that I can do it for the children,” she whispered to a small stone. 

He realised she was talking to his grave, at least the grave she thought was his. He wanted to touch her, tell her he was alive and he was coming for her. He wanted to hold her, telling her never had to be alone ever again.

“Fergus! I must go. I saw her in my dreams. She… she was sobbin’.  Lonely. As much as I love ye—”

“How will you do it? You said yourself the last two times when you touched the tallest stone—this one,” he touched the tallest one, “nothing happened, like this. Like I touched it now.”

“What if there is somethin’ we miss the point over?” 

“What do you mean?” Fergus asked, he wanted to know what kind of point Milord was talking about. What if there was no point? What if he couldn’t go there?

The wind had quieted as Jamie walked around the stone circle. The sky hung low and silver, clouds stretched thin like gauze over the evening. The stones stood silent, unmoved by the centuries—and yet, they seemed to watch ; people who disappear through time.

Jamie stepped into the heart of the ring, his breath shallow in his chest. Then his eyes dropped to the base of the tallest stone.

There… There was the missing element of the puzzle… Just as he remembered Claire describing, nestled in the grass and stone dust, were the small, delicate blossoms— forget-me-nots, their soft blue petals trembling in the breeze.

He crouched slowly, large fingers gentle as he plucked a small cluster from the earth. The flowers were unassuming, but there was something about them—some quiet defiance in their beauty, blooming in such a desolate place—that made his throat tighten.

As his hand closed around the flower, he heard it.

A low, insistent buzzing .

Not from the insects or the wind, but from within the stone itself—like a vibration that rang through his bones, tugging somewhere deep behind his breastbone. It was not a sound so much as a calling , a hum that grew louder, pulsing with memory, with time.

Jamie rose to his feet, staring up at the great stone. The buzzing deepened, almost musical now, almost like—

"Milord."

Fergus stood at the edge of the circle, his face pale, his jaw set. Jamie turned to him, the flowers still in his hand.

Fergus went there, plucked a flower himself. And then he heard too. The buzzing. The missing point.

“I’ll find her,” Jamie said. “And the lass.”

Fergus nodded, his throat working. “I believe you will.”

Jamie stepped closer, his voice quieter now. “No’ goodbye,” he said again, his eyes never leaving the young man’s. “ Au revoir, mon fils. Goodbye sounds too much like forever.”

Fergus blinked hard and bowed his head. “Au revoir, Milord.”

Jamie gave him a faint smile, then turned back to the stone.

The buzzing was louder now—almost unbearable. He stepped forward, heart pounding, and pressed his palm flat against the cool surface.

For one breathless moment, the world held still.

Then—

Light. Noise. The wind inside his blood. A tearing, rushing, falling .

And he was gone. Like he was never there moments before.

Fergus stood alone among the ancient stones, the forget-me-nots fluttering gently in the grass where Jamie had plucked them. 

Then, when he made sure Milord was somewhere else he shook that terrible feeling down, turned his back to the stone and climbed down the faerie hill. Knowing next time when the gate was open, he would try and find his family in the future.

Chapter Text

22nd June 1948, Inverness

He woke up next to the tallest stone. His head ached when he lifted up his head. Fergus was not there. Perhaps it worked?, it was the first thought in his head. 

Then: Where the hell am I? Is it her time?

He heard some noise behind his back but he was too tired to look behind. He felt himself a newborn baby after entering the world: feeling exhausted doing anything, so he put his head back to the ground. Perhaps, it was a rabbit or something else, nothing harmful.

He heard a rustle of skirts. There was no doubt about it. Someone was behind him. Someone who would ask what he was doing there. 

“Dinna be afraid.” It was a woman’s voice. “I mean no harm to ye,” she was coming closer, crouched down and touched his back.  “Are ye lost, sir?” she asked softly, eyes on the man. 

He lied there, his heart beating slow and heavy. Forget-me-nots cradled in his palm, he gripped them as if his life depended on it. He was wearing a ring, the gemstone was missing from it. She immediately knew: there was no place for her question. The man was lost in time. He came from another time.

"Ye’re no’ from around here, are ye?" she asked gently.

He gave a small shake of the head. “No… I came for someone, but mebbe she’s no’ here.”

She approached slowly, eyes sharp despite her age. “Ye’re lookin’ for someone, then?”

He glanced back at the stones, then to the flowers in his hand. “My wife,” he said, the name grounding him. “Her name is Claire.”

He felt the air shift. The woman froze.

“Claire…” she repeated, softly, thinking. “Ye mean, Claire Beauchamp?”

His eyes snapped to hers. “Aye.”

She stared at him, full of disbelief—and something else. Recognition.

He stepped closer. “Do ye know her? Has she… has she been here?” His eyes sparkled with hope. Maybe she saw tears as well. And so much love, since when he said her name… Mrs Graham had known who was standing in front of her.

The woman pressed her hand over her chest, tears welling. “Ye must be Jamie.”

He went still. “What did ye say?”

“Jamie Fraser.” Her voice broke. “She told me about her adventures. Yer name. And what she feels for ye. My God. You’re real.” 

Slowly, he tried to stand up while she was speaking but there was a moment when the world slowed. His knees buckled with the relief that hit him like the first breath after drowning. He was at the right time. 

“She’ll be mad wi’ joy when she sees ye,” the woman whispered, sounding delighted. “My dear boy….”

He couldn’t speak. Only nodded, swallowing his tears back..

The woman reached out and touched his arm, steadying him.

“My name is Mrs Graham, but ye can call me Flora, if ye like.”

He managed a hoarse, “Thank ye, Flora.”

The road down from the hill was smoother than it had any right to be—black stone, hard as glass, but humming faintly under his boots like the metal tracks of a printing press. Jamie walked behind Flora, his limbs aching, his chest still tight with disbelief. He’d done it. He was here. The when was still fragile in his mind, uncertain in the trees and sounds, but her words kept echoing. He saw the things Claire told about it—cars. Those loud beasts people used instead of riding horses. He didn’t like the sound of them. This world was louder than he would’ve ever imagined. But he would get used to it. For Claire. Nothing mattered as much as being with Claire again.

Mrs Graham lived in a small house tucked behind a row of hedges near the edge of the village; it was a neat, white house with crimson lambers. And a garden was blooming; it reminded him of that Claire had at Lallybroch.  He eyed the place as she led him in. The air smelled strange—clean, yes, but tinged with things he couldn’t name. Soap. Electricity. Metal.

“Ye need new clothes,” Flora said, bustling ahead. “Come on, now. Sit. I’ll find something o’ my Harold’s that might suit you. He was tall—no’ as tall as you—but close enough.”

Jamie glanced down at himself: filthy boots, his worn-out kilt and his shirt had some holes. “I dinna wish to trouble ye—”

“Hush,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s the least I can do. Truly. Ye must be looking the perfect gentleman when ye meet her. So ye must look properly,” she said with confidence, so he believed her. Convincing woman, he thought. 

She vanished down a hallway, and Jamie sat cautiously on a chair by the fireplace, unsure if it was proper to touch anything. It wasn’t comfortable to be here; he still didn’t believe it wasn’t a dream. The hearth was strange, too—no logs, no peat, yet warm air whispered out from behind a black iron grate. 

He heard a few drawers opening, then Flora returned with an armful of folded garments. 

“Try these,” she said, setting them beside him. “Trousers, shirt, jumper. There’s a bath just through there if you like.” She thought of everything. She reminded him of her sister, Jenny—a perfect  housewife.

Jamie’s brow raised. “A bath?”

“Yes. Hot water. Running. Claire said it was a thing she missed from yer time,.” She gave him a knowing smile. “Well—until you, I imagine.”

Jamie blinked. He remembered.  A bath. Over me.

She waved, and he followed him up the stairs, then she turned right. Flora opened the door, leading him into the bathroom. “Go on. I’ll make tea. There are towels. Just twist the tap and it’ll fill itself. Dinna be afraid o’ it. Ye’ll be fine,” she encouraged him, touching his left arm.

Inside, the bath was a gleaming white basin—like a fountain—as long as a coffin, built into the tiled floor. A mirror on the wall, and a hum in the air like the stones—but solemn.

Jamie eyed the contraption with deep suspicion.

He removed his shirt slowly, then the rest, until he stood bare in the cold room. Steam curled up from the rising water, and he reached in—gasping softly at the heat. Not boiling, but close. Warm enough to turn bone to butter. 

He eased in one leg, then the other, then sank slowly, groaning as his body met the heat.

“Christ,” he whispered. “Is this what she missed?”

The water cradled him, like a heated embrace, seeped into his joints. Dirt loosened from his skin. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking at the light overhead—soft, steady, no flame.

A bath that ran itself. A fireless hearth. Water from the wall. The future had conveniences he never imagined—and yet Claire had left it all. For him.

He swallowed hard, a lump rising in his throat as the warmth soaked in.

She chose me.

Even with this. Even with all of this .

And for the first time, he allowed himself to believe he might truly deserve her

Jamie had just finished tugging on the unfamiliar trousers—soft and strange, buttoned in the wrong places—and was eyeing himself in the hallway mirror when it rang.

A shrill, piercing trill.

He startled, hand flying to the hilt of a dagger he no longer carried. It was a strange feeling. The sound came from a box on the table in the sitting room—small, black, with a long curled tail, like a wee pig. It screamed again, loud and insistent.

Flora appeared in the doorway, entirely unbothered. It was ordinary for her.

“Don’t mind that,” she said casually, brushing her hands on her skirt. “ ‘Tis just the phone.”

Jamie blinked. “The what?”

He remembered Claire once mentioned the telephones; their look and function, but seeing it in real life it was a different experience. Scarier, louder, the sound didn’t seem coming from this world. 

“The telephone,” she said, crossing the room to the wall. “It lets folk speak to each other across miles.”

He stared at her as if she’d just spoken Gaelic to a sheep. 

She lifted the device from its cradle, pressing it to her ear. “Mrs Flora Graham here”

Jamie leaned forward slightly, eyes fixed on the contraption.

Flora's expression softened. “Claire, darling. Aye, everything’s fine. No, just a quiet day,” she was shaking her head, looking at Jamie—wide eyes.

Jamie’s breath caught. Nearly choked on air itself.

Claire.

She was on the other end of that voice. That impossible magic. Across miles, Flora had said. Jamie had traveled across centuries to hear her again, and now she was only feet away—from a box on the table.

He took a slow step forward, unable to stop himself.

Flora met his eyes. Her voice didn’t waver. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I’d rather not just now. I’ve a bit of company—my son came home for a few days from Edinburgh, but he’s about to be back tomorrow. Could you come on Sunday instead? And please bring yer daughter along. I miss her sweet laughter.”

Jamie opened his mouth, as Flora mentioned his Faith, unsure what to say, but Flora raised one hand gently. Wait, she said with her eyes.

She chuckled softly into the phone. “Yes, I’m fine, truly. I’ll make the lassie’s favourite biscuit, and you can tell me all about your day then. All right, sweetheart. Have a good time in the park.”

She set the device back into its cradle. The sound stopped.

Jamie exhaled slowly.

Mrs Graham turned to him with a small smile. “She was about to ask if she could come over. I thought you might like to be the one to knock on her door instead.”

Jamie swallowed hard, his heart pounding with gratitude and nerves. “Aye. Thank ye. I—”

“She won’t know what’s hit her,” Flora said, eyes twinkling.

He looked again at the black box on the table, still wondering how it worked. “So… folk can talk through that? As if they’re in the same room?”

She nodded. “It’s the closest thing we’ve got to a miracle.”

Jamie looked down at his hands, then toward the door. “No. That would be her opening the door and seeing me.”

Flora patted his arm. “Then we’d best be sure she answers it.”

Chapter Text

Since the day we came back from our visit to Culloden, Faith had been acting weird. She wasn’t like herself—not even a little. She started to have nightmares, she could not sleep through the night, and always woke up screaming incoherently. Something bothered her and every time I asked her, she said “nothing” or she was “good”. 

One day two weeks after we visited the “grave” she started to talk about—in half-words, half-sentences—her father. When I questioned her, she didn’t answer in a way I would understand. Since the moment she noted, feeling him; that was strange. I couldn’t help but fear. It was not a situation that happened every day. 

So, what will you do, Beauchamp?, I asked myself for the hundredth time that dawn after a new nightmare.

The scream shattered the stillness of the flat like glass. The bed beneath her trembled for a moment, like a little earthquake. It was a nightmare—again. It was the third—including only that week.

I was out of bed before I could think, the sheets twisted around my legs as I stumbled down the hall, heart in my throat. I pushed—or kicked, it didn’t matter at that very moment—Faith’s door, and there she was—sitting bolt upright in bed, her little body trembling, her cheeks streaked with tears. Always the same posture, always the same scared visage.

“Mama!” she sobbed,“Where he go?! I saw him—then he gone!”

I was beside her in a heartbeat, wrapping her tightly in my arms, clutching her like I could keep her from falling apart just by holding on hard enough.

“It’s alright, darling. You’re safe. I’ve got you,” I whispered, rocking her gently. “It was just a dream.”

But she only shook her head, frantic and broken.

“No! No here. He was dere! In da trees. He look me. He want me. Then gone!”

She choked on the last word, and I felt something in me crack wide open.

She’d spoken of him before—the man in her dreams. A man with kind eyes, a soft voice. A man who made her feel safe. I’d let myself believe it was fantasy, an imaginary friend—many children had one. or maybe something buried deep in her blood, in her bones—some echo of Jamie she couldn’t possibly remember. But now, holding her while she sobbed like her heart was breaking, I wasn’t so sure.

“I wan’ him,” she whimpered into my chest. “Why he no back?”

Tears spilled hot down my face, and I pressed my lips to her hair.

“I want him back too.”

She quieted a little, her breathing ragged but less panicked. I thought maybe she was falling back asleep when her voice reached me again, soft and certain.

“See him… when I no sweepin’. Not dream.” Her thumb found her mouth for a moment, then slipped away again. “He there… no’ all. But feel him. He lookin’.”

I froze.

The room seemed to still be around us. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

I pulled back just enough to see her face. Her eyes met mine, wide and dark and burning with something too old for a child.

“Faith,” I said, barely more than a whisper, “what do you mean, bunny?”

She shook her head slowly, her curls brushing my chin. “He’s close.”

It was nonsense. I wanted to believe her, but it was too absurd to believe it. He was dead. 

I clutched her tighter, both of us crying now, neither of us able to say another word.

We stayed like that for a long time, wrapped in each other, aching for the same man—lost in time but somehow drawing nearer. I didn’t realise it at first, didn’t know the sound was coming out of my mouth; I started to sing.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? 

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was the true love of mine

There was something in that song. Something I couldn’t explain, or why I loved that song, or why I started to sing it as a lullaby, but it worked. Faith fell back asleep within five minutes. I didn’t have a heart to put her back into her own bed, tucking back into those sweaty blankets, so I took her back to my bedroom—it had been our night routine for weeks now. She slept steadier next to me, she knew in her sleep she was more than safe.

And for the mornings—she never remembered what happened during the nights. She woke up late, cheerful and smiling, like she had the best sleep in her entire life.

The mornings were always the same: tedious, and I couldn’t help but fear, what if the rest of our life would be the same? What if her nightmares never left her? What if she didn't know how to ask for help? What if I didn’t know how to help her overcome it?

The sun was already streaming through the curtains when I heard the soft patter of tiny feet padding into the kitchen. 

I turned from the stove, wooden spoon in hand, as Faith wandered in—bedraggled, rosy-cheeked, and dragging her blanket like a tiny queen in exile.

“Morning, sleepy queen,” I said softly, unsure what I’d find in her eyes. “It’s your new record for sleeping late,” I smiled. She set a new score, though I would hate myself by the evening. Why did I let her sleep that long, but I didn’t have a heart to wake her up. She had a rough night. So did I. “For your information it’s half past twelve.”

But she only smiled, proudly, and bright as ever, and climbed into her chair, throwing her baby blanket to the ground, like she did it on any other day. 

“I made rice porridge,” I added. “With cinnamon. Your favorite.”

She nodded, reaching for her spoon with both hands. “Mmm… smell good, Mama.”

I watched her for a moment, waiting.

She hummed softly to herself as she stirred, her curls a tangled mess around her face. Her eyes were still sleepy, but full of waiting for the new adventure of today. No sign of the night before—no tears, no fear, no trace of the voice that had cried out in the dark for her father.

“Do you remember your dream, baby?” I asked gently, kneeling beside her chair. “From last night?”

I always tried. What if… perhaps… What if this time she remembered? You never know if it’s time. So I tried. Every day, but I never got the answer I’d been waiting for.

She looked at me blankly for a moment, then shrugged.

“Don’ think so.”

“Nothing at all?”

She poked her porridge thoughtfully, then smiled again. “Um… a kitty. Blue one.

A soft laugh escaped me—half relief, half heartbreak.

 “A blue kitty?”

She giggled. “Mhhm.”

That was it. No memory of the cries, the panic, the name she’d spoken like a prayer in the dark.

“Of course he was,” I murmured.

She didn’t see the way my hand trembled as I brushed a curl behind her ear, didn’t hear the catch in my breath.

Last night had shaken me to the bone. But for her, the storm had passed.

And yet… I noticed how she paused a few minutes later, mid-spoonful, turning toward the window.

Like something tugged at her.

Just for a second.

“Da?” she said suddenly.

My breath caught. “What did you say, love?”

She blinked up at me. “Nuffin’.” Then smiled and ate again.

I watched her quietly, heart caught between the past and the future, and the space in between where dreams leave their echoes behind.

After we finished “breakfast” I insisted on dressing up instead of staying in bed all day. Reasoning, she stayed the past almost-half day in bed with sleeping. It was time to do something else. Something adventurous.

She finally chose what to wear today. On the contrary, she chose it faster than she did yesterday.

She selected a light cotton dress in soft pastel yellow, the bodice gently smock with tiny, embroidered white daisies. The dress had puffed short sleeves trimmed with delicate lace, and a lacy hem that danced around her knees when she moved. A fine white cardigan, loosely knit and slightly oversized, hung open over her shoulders, fastened only at the top with a small pearl button. Her white ankle socks were folded neatly, and her shoes—scuffed but polished—were classic leather Mary Janes, her favourite. She chose it on our first shopping tour, and now I could nearly never take it out from her feet. She allowed me to put a pastel yellow ribbon into her wild, messy curls. She finally realised, it bothered her every time when her hair was hanging in her eyes.

My first idea was for today’s adventure to visit Mrs Graham for a cup of tea. She made me a promise to visit her, taking along Faith after we found our place in our new life and telling her everything that had happened since then. So it was a perfect time. 

When I called her, she seemed confused, not knowing where she was or what she was talking about. She said it wasn’t a good time for her, but we made an appointment. After all, it was a poor idea of me asking her on the same day that we were planning a visit.

“What do you think? Do you want to go to the park?

“Hmmm…Yes!”

“That’s my baby girl!” I exclaimed and put up the keys. “Let’s go, bunny, shall we?”

The afternoon was warm—I couldn’t even see a cloud—rare for Scotland, and the sun hung lazily over the little park not far from our flat. It was within a ten-minute walk. Faith usually took that roat hopping like a little bunny, not going far to keep holding my hand. After we arrived we usually sat down on the same bench close to a fountain. She absolutely loved that fountain. She was fascinated by that—she had never seen one in the “auld” Scotland she had known before. 

“Go?” she asked quietly, and I nodded, giving her the permission to run ahead. 

“Faith, love, stay where I can see you!” I called gently, though there was no real need. She always stayed close. She had never gone too far. She always held my hand even if I let her go and play. She clung to me and it didn't bother me at all. Why would it do? Every day, she managed to make me smile and warm my heart again and again.

Her shoes, those cute Mary Janes, were already scuffed from climbing over a low stone, and she climbed up onto the wide stone rim of the fountain’s basin, her little hands gripping the edge as she leaned forward to watch the water shimmer below. She didn’t care. She never did. The cardigan I’d insisted she wear hung from her shoulders, buttoned only at the top, now it got wet as he dipped his little arm into the water.

She didn’t answer—only giggled. 

I smiled, unable to help it, even as something in my chest tugged tight.

There were days she looked so much like Jamie that I could barely breathe. Not just the red-gold glint in her hair or the fullness of her mouth, or the way she cared for me. It was the same but different caring. And the way she observed the world—as if it belonged to her, not because she demanded it, but because she understood it. Because she was part of it. She could be so quiet sometimes, so still, staring into the sky or the wind or the bark of a tree with those wide, watchful eyes.

A few feet away, a dog barked once and a bicycle bell rang, but Faith didn’t flinch. She was only sitting on her heels unsteady on the rim of the basin and turned slowly—looking toward something I couldn’t see. Her face went blank for a moment, serious, as if listening for a voice just out of reach.

Then—just like that—she blinked, smiled again, and came running back to me, arms open wide.

“Mamaaaaa!” she cried out, her voice full of joy as she started to give a kiss attack on my cheek.

I caught her and lifted her into my lap, breathing in the scent of water and soft skin and summer. Her curls tickled my neck as she snuggled into me, utterly content.

“You were gone ages,” I murmured against her hair.

“See bug,” she mumbled sleepily. “And fw’wer. An’ Da.”

I stiffened slightly, heart skipping. “What did you say, sweetheart?”

She blinked up at me, suddenly unsure. “Nuffin’, Mama.” It was the same “nothing” she said in the kitchen in the morning. It was bizarre, giving another thing to worry about.

I kissed her warm cheek, even as something deep in me ached so fiercely I could hardly hold her. Maybe she didn’t remember her dreams come morning. She didn’t remember the dreams itself, but she clearly remembered him. At least some part of her was still remembered.

My last attempt of the day asking Faith what was going on in her head was that point when she answered “nuffin’ “ for the third time after seeing something and crying out “Da!”.

“Come here, baby. Tell me what's bothering you," I sat her on my lap, and pulled her closer to my chest. Today was full of chaos. Our worst and best day since the nightmares started. Something changed her mood—more than usually.

"Feel–"

"What do you feel, bunny?" I asked, curiously, hoping, after weeks of torture she was going to start to speak about it. It felt like hosting a tiny therapy for her—maybe it truly was a therapy for her.

"Da,” she answered after a long time of thinking.

"Da's gone, Faith," I said with confidence, but nothing could stop my tears, which flowed as soon as my—his—daughter mentioned her beloved father. 

Again.

But for me, saying loud out he was gone, was harder than I’d ever imagined.

"He's gone, bunny,” I said again, but for a moment I did not even believe myself. 

But that feeling only came for a short moment, then—it was gone; like the love of my life.

"He no’!” He here."

"Yes, baby, he's here," I touched her left side of her

body where her heart beat. "He will always be here with you. With us."

“He comin’, loo’in’ us,” she shouted

Chapter Text

I wanted to believe her, wanted to know it was real that he’s coming, searching for me, because he promised me at the stones that he would find me. And I wanted to find him. Faith gave me some hope that maybe he’d visit me in my dreams tonight to be together just a little bit.

“Come, lovie, it’s time for dinner,” I said softly, and she hummed back something that sounded like a yes.

It was the golden hour. The room was filled with the soft golden light. The early evening, sunlight slanting across the table in long, drowsy streaks. It wasn’t an extravagant dinner, it wasn’t something fancy, since I was not a fine cook at all. But I was trying hard. It was cheesy macaroni, though I could hardly taste the food on my plate. My fork had barely moved, but across from me, Faith was a whirlwind of joy in miniature—chatting softly to herself, her cheeks still pink from the afternoon sun.

She didn’t allow me to change her afternoon clothes, she still wore that little pale yellow dress—refused to part with it. I hadn't the heart to press her. No, not today. 

“Mama, look!” she whispered, holding out tiny strands of macaroni shaped like a heart. “You!” she giggled. 

I laughed, surprised by the lump that rose in my throat. “That’s me, is it?”

She nodded solemnly and squished the heart flat with her spoon, then smiled and said, “I eat you now,” before popping it in her mouth with great pride. Her eyes sparkled with mischief, and I reached across the table to smooth a wild curl away from her face.

She was so alive, so beautiful and tender, so full of the bright, honest wonder only a child could carry. And yet I felt the weight of the day pressing behind my eyes—the sound of Jamie’s name on her lips, the breeze that had stirred her hair just as I swore I felt him near.

He would have loved watching her slowly growing up.

He would have held her in his arms after supper, rocked her to sleep, carried her upstairs while she yawned against his shoulder. He would have danced with her in the grass and spun her in circles until they both collapsed laughing. I saw it all so clearly in my mind that I nearly dropped my fork.

I looked at her then—her little hands, her serious concentration as she speared a carrot—and I couldn’t stop the ache.

“Did you have a nice day, sweetheart?” I asked softly.

She nodded without looking up. “Mhhm. F’owers. Bug. ‘N Da.”

My breath caught. “You saw Da?”

She blinked slowly, then rubbed her eyes. “No… maybe. He not talk.” Then, after a pause, “He hug in my heart.”

I smiled, though my eyes burned. “Oh, Faith.”

She yawned so wide her jaw popped, then laid her head on the table with a very dramatic sigh, her spoon still clutched in one hand.

I got up, circled the table, and scooped her into my arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Time for bed,” I whispered.

She didn’t argue, even though she always did. Saying she was not exhausted but after two minutes of singing to her she fell asleep. Just nestled into my shoulder, moving her to her room, but then she murmured, “Sleep wi’ you?”

“Of course.” I changed my direction to my own bedroom, placed her on the right side of the bed, tucked her under the blankets. After two minutes of silence she opened her eyes, sat up and looked at me with wide eyes.

“No sleep,” she stated. She felt something. At least I thought that was why he could not sleep.

“Try, Faith. It’s rather late,” I insisted, but she acted like she didn’t hear.

“Mama!” Faith cried out, kicked down the blankets, confused.

“What’s that, Faith?

“Da close,” she said, climbing down the bed, opening the door and running down the hall.

“Faith, come back!” I followed her. 

She was sitting on the couch, by the time I got to the room. She waiting for her father’s homecoming which was not possible. So I sat beside her, pulling her onto my lap, trying to explain to her again what was or wasn’t going on.

“Baby, I know you miss him so much, but Da has gone forever, because he wanted to protect us.” 

I didn’t say that he’d pay with his life. I couldn’t tell her that maybe, in another universe we would’ve stayed out of the rising if I never told her father to change the past just the two of us and stop the Jacobite rebellion. Without our attempts it’d happened too, but we hadn’t been involved if Jamie wouldn’t have been the “friend” of the head of the rising, the bloody Bonnie fucking Prince Charlie. Although, we’d be in Lallybroch, the middle of the clearances and the hunger, but we would be together.

I cannot wish such things, I remembered myself. I shouldn't have looked at what'd be bearable for me, but what would be good for Faith and this baby. They were safe here. And one day they would understand their story: why they couldn’t play with their cousins, why we’d left the place that once we called home. What had their father done to keep the three of us safe although he didn’t have an idea that I'd be alone.

“Da brave,” she said after a long time of thinking.

“Yes, bunny. He was very brave. Your Dad was the bravest man I've ever known,” I closed the topic, but she was too stubborn for it to not to be the one who had the last words.

“Mamma! No listen!”

How the bloody hell could I? My two-year-old daughter somehow felt that her father was there without a single sign and she was constantly talking about him being here, that he didn’t die on that bloody battlefield. It was nonsense. How could I believe this? Why would I give some hope to myself that he survived? Would it be better? Somehow it was easier to bear that he died, because I couldn’t go back to him. If it was just me I’d go, I’d run back to him if there wasn't tomorrow. But I couldn’t. I was a soon-to-be mother of two. 

“Faith, God knows what you feel but it’s nonsense! He’s fucking dead by now!” I shouted. He was dead and buried in the past two centuries. After a moment I realised I shouldn't have had to say that, but I was angry and outraged that she had been giving me little hope since her dreams started, that my husband survived Culloden. “I’m sorry, Faith. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. 

“Fuggin!” she roared, trying to copy my phrase. She liked the new word, like I handed her something ancient and forbidden knowledge. It was hard to be a parent, especially when your child was “big” enough to copy your curse words. And it was hard to not laugh at all. Not on her, instead of the sounding of the word.

I smiled to myself, when a thought from the back of my mind drifted elsewhere—back to a moment that never failed to make me laugh. Years ago, in the early days of our marriage he asked the same. He hadn’t even known what ‘fucking’ meant.

“Sassenach… what does 'fucking' mean?” he’d asked, slowly, his charming Scottish accent curling around the word like it didn’t quite belong in his mouth.

I’d nearly choked and laughed at the same time, my cheeks flushing as I tried to decide how to even begin explaining.

“It’s…” I’d said, biting back a grin. “Well. It’s a very... intense way of saying ‘making love.’ Except it’s not always about love. It can just be... heated. Rough. Passionate. You know—when you can't even think straight, just feel.”

He stared at me, eyes wide, like I’d handed him some ancient forbidden knowledge. Then his expression changed—lips curving, eyes darkening with slow, deliberate understanding.

“Och,” he’d said, the word rolling out like honey. “So... we’ve done a lot of fucking, aye?”

I had burst into laughter, flustered and blushing and head over heels for the man who could be so pure and wicked all at once. 

God, how I loved him. Even when he didn’t understand my words—especially then.

“It’s a bad word. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry,” I said softly, opening my arms towards her, and she melted in my arms. God, how tired she was!

“Mhhm.”

“Let's go back to sleep. Sleep tight, my little angel.” I gave her a kiss, holding her in my arms, walking back to the bedroom.

What I really wanted was a few glasses of alcohol which would make me forget the things that happened since dawn.

“I need a cup of tea, but I’ll be back. Try to sleep, close your eyes, and when I’m back, I’ll sing for you,” I made her a promise, but she shook her head immediately.

“No.”

“No, you have to sleep. Now,” I commanded.

“But Da—”

After she said it, something happened. 

A dream.

A hallucination.

It did not feel true.

My wildest dream.

My biggest wish.

"Claire!" 

"Da!" Faith screamed delighted. And the ‘I told you so’ look was written in her amber eyes.

"What?" I went numb. I couldn’t see anything, at first. It had been two months since I last heard that voice.

You're just in my head. You're not here. You're dead, I thought. You were dead in the past two hundred years, said my rational mind, but I knew, if my daughter heard it, then it must have been true. We couldn't hallucinate the same thing at the same time. Back in my mind I knew it had really happened, but at that point I was confused. It didn’t feel real. The last time he couldn’t travel. He didn’t hear the buzzing, and now… I didn’t know. I was numb and unconscious. I had never wanted anything more than to see him again, lean to his chest, l know I was safe and we were home again.

There had been a righteousness between us almost from the first day in our marriage. Both of us knew if there was a problem we could solve it together. I was the happiest and luckiest woman in the world to have him, to be with him as his wife for almost three years. I loved him, very much, more than anything in my whole life. He was everything to me. He was the air I breathed every second, the sun during the day, the moon during the night and the earth I stepped on day by day.

It’d never been easy for us, but we managed to make it work. It wasn’t the plan but I couldn't leave him at first. He was so much more to me than I first thought. It was a dangerous time with wars and violence, however I made a decision on that day, on the faerie hill at Craig na Dun. I chose to stay with him in the past, I hadn’t realised at the time but slowly I fell in love with him. I had always been ashamed to admit to myself that he was charming since we first met, but I couldn’t confess it because I was married to another man, Frank.

I loved Frank. Once in past. He was my first love. I was young when we got married, I was only a young, 18-year-old girl and I was madly in love but I hadn't known anything about how to make everything work. Frank loved me and I hoped he could forgive me for leaving him for another man. The love of my entire life.

I should have regretted that I left Frank for another man, but I didn’t. I had no regrets in my life. I never had one. I would have made the same choice and do everything all over again to be more with him; just one more time to feel his gentle touch on my skin, his passionate kisses on my lips and his magical shield with which he wanted to protect me even then he had to pay with his life to save mine. It always felt like being in a bubble which kept me safe from all the dangers in the world.

Second, I must have left. If it was only me, I’d stay with him until his last breath and I would have died gladly with him. But it wasn’t only me. There was Faith and this unborn child who I’d been carrying, so I left him alone, left him to die on that bloody battlefield of Culloden, because I promised him to leave when the time comes, even though I didn't want to give my word for it.

And since I got back to this bloody time—that wasn't mine anymore, my place was with him, no matter in which century—he had lived in my fantasies. His spirit was with me everyday, I felt a soft warmness around me, I believed it must have been him, and it was easier to bear alone the loss of his existence. His touch on the base of my thumb, as he marked me as his. On our last day together.

I ran. My legs moved before my mind could catch up, carrying me through the narrow hallway, past the quiet echo of the life I’d tried to rebuild without him. My bare feet hit the floor like thunder, every step heavier than the last.

I skidded to a halt in front of the door.

My chest rose and fell in harsh, shallow breaths. My hand hovered just inches from the doorknob, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.

What if I opened it and he was just a ghost? An echo of his voice.

What if I’d imagined it—my mind playing cruel games with the pieces of my heart still left? What if he was really there?

My fingers trembled violently, so much so I had to grip my wrist with my other hand just to steady them.

I pressed my forehead against the door, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to will my courage back into place. His voice echoed again—closer this time. I could hear the ache in it. The hope.

And still… I hesitated.

Because I wasn’t just opening a door. I was opening everything I’d locked away just to survive being without him.

But then I heard him say my name again—quieter now, cracked, like a prayer on the edge of breaking.

And that was all it took.

I closed my shaking hand around the knob.

And I turned it.

Please, don't be a ghost, my love. Don't even try it. Your wife needs you, more than anything else, Jamie Fraser. I thought and prayed to God that it wasn't just a dream that I heard his voice again. 

I opened the door and I almost fainted. He was standing in front of me. On my doorstep. My brave highlander. Mine. The love of my life.

He looked different—thinner, exhausted, shadows dark beneath his eyes. But his eyes… They were the same. The same deep, blue eyes that had once whispered to me that everything was alright. 

“Is it really you?” I whispered and touched his face to know him to be real. And he was there. More than alive.

“You canna tell it?” he murmured and held my hands. I squeezed his hand and it seemed I wasn't dreaming. I was living in my dreams.

He didn't look like a ghost. I got him back. From the soft light of relief I immediately started crying. 

His throat bobbed, his hands curled into fists at his sides like he didn't know if he was allowed to touch me.  

“Dinna weep, lass,” he shushed me, whispering tender words to my ears, but I saw tears in his eyes, and heard he was sobbing, though. He gave a long, gentle kiss on my forehead. “I'm here, my Sassenach, ye see? Your husband isna a ghost anymore.” 

“How?” I asked with confusion. Although at that moment that wasn't the most important thing that we could talk about.

“I dinna ken. But can we talk ‘bout it later?”

“Of course, I’m sorry. I just can't believe you’re really here.” 

“Me neither, Sassenach. To see yer face, yer smile, the wild curls around your face, it's more than I had ever wanted to see again.” 

I grabbed him, my fingers danced on the back of his coat. I was so afraid that if I let him go, he’d disappear.

“I would verra much like to kiss you. May I?”

“Yes,” I nodded a lot, quickly.

I didn't realise that I had held my breath back, when I tried to take a long breath, I couldn't. 

Before I could think, before I could question, I was moving. So was he. I crashed into his chest at the same moment his arms wrapped around me, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.

Then his lips found mine, and everything else fell away. The kiss was desperate, wild, full of all the words we never got to say to each other, all the time spent with desperate longing for something we thought we’d lost forever. He kissed me like he was drowning, like I was the air and without breathing it in, he would die immediately. The pouring months of loneliness and longing in our kiss was like a downpour in the late summer night.

A broken sound escaped him, part sigh, part sob, as his hands cupped my face, tilting me closer, deepening the kiss like he could somehow make up for all the time stolen from us.

I gasped against his lips, pulling back just enough to look at him. My hands trembled as I touched his face, the warmth of his skin. "I thought I'd lost you forever," I whispered, my voice breaking.

His forehead pressed against mine, his breath was hot and ragged. "I thought I'd never see you again."

Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t care. I wanted to make sure that both of us found that way back to our home, our safe place. I kissed him again, slower this time, memorizing the feel of him, the taste of his lips. He melted into me, his fingers playing with my wild light brown curls. He was terrified that if he let my bunch of hair go, he'd wake up from a dream sweating, alone, in the middle of the night.

When we finally pulled apart, his arms didn't lose, nor wavered.

His voice was thick with emotion when he whispered, "I've come home to you, my Sassenach."

“Welcome home, soldier.”

And for the first time in the past two months, I felt whole again.

Chapter Text

“Don't you want to come inside? Or do you want to stay here?” I asked, still confused. It must have been living in my dreams. My voice was hesitant, not sure what to do, how or where to place my hands. I knew he felt the same thing, so I took the first step by asking to come inside. And with that everything would be easier. 

“No, I'm comin’ it's just… Ye're verra beautiful, Sassenach. Yer cheek is red like an apple, ye're smiling; I want to believe because of me…” I nodded softly, giving him a confirmation, “and this child—our child, Christ, I'm verra sorry that I missed two months.” He didn’t say more, he placed only his hands on my belly. It was showing, not much but there was only a small noticeable curve. As his huge and warm hand touched me, I knew everything would be alright. We would be a whole family again like I dreamt about it since I left him. At least almost whole…

“It’s alright. You're here now.” I must have sounded strange or cold, but I was still flabbergast. I couldn’t believe he was really there. My mind was still numb, I still feared if I I blinked he wouldn’t be here anymore.

But he was there.

Really, really there.  “But you… you're gaunt and exhausted. I will make you something to eat and—”

“No need to,” he shook his head, her deep, ocean blue eyes were full of hope, full of love and the way… that gentleness in his look; how he looked at me, it was something I thought I’d never see again. “I'm fine. The only thing I need now tae see my wee Faith. I heard her voice. I thought, she's sleepin’, it's too late for a wee lassie to stay up so long.”

“I’m aware of that, thank you very much,” I teased him, slapping his arm which made him smile. It was like we were like months ago, even though it felt like a lifetime ago.  “But she hadn’t wanted to sleep thanks to you,” I rolled my eyes, still standing outside the flat. Still just the two of us without our little whirlwind. “I couldn't force her, she's stubborn, but I'm not surprised, she's a Fraser after all,” he smiled, as I did. It'd been long months since I said this— our, I remembered myself— name.

“What do ye mean “thanks to me”? He asked and at first I had no idea how to answer. 

“She…she, uh, felt your presence since… fuck,” I murmured, there was no way, which had some sense, that’d explain your husband that your daughter felt his closeness. “It’s only, uh, she felt you.

“Me? How?” 

“I don't know. I tried to ask her but I didn't understand, nor did I think she had. She only said that you're close. Or she had seen you. In the park, in the forest… It didn't make sense to me.”

“Sassenach, do ye think she has some magical powers? I mean, she can travel, she felt my closeness. Do ye think that I’m here because she led me home somehow? ”

“I-I don’t know. Perhaps. But I don’t think she can explain it, she’s just a two-year-old. But I like this idea. Imagine, how does it feel being so powerful at her age without knowing about it,” I said after a while of thinking. It would have never come to my mind as an option how was it possible to be together again.

“She’s our wee mìorbhail , no,” he asked and gave a kiss on my temple. I nodded because if he was right, it’d make Faith a miracle as well. Not that, she always had been one.

“Come, meet our daughter and I’ll make you a bath,” I offered, but he shook his head, saying ‘Stay!’ So I stayed.

I wondered how he had modern clothes. Someone found him? Someone helped him? Of course there was someone, how else could he find where we lived, where he would find us, said my rational mind. He looked different, worn-out and thinner but he looked modern as well. It was something I’d never expected to see. To see him in trousers, for one.

He closed the door behind him, his footsteps were hard on the floor, just as I remembered. I led him to the sitting room where I left Faith before I decided to open the door for the future. I wondered why she didn’t run with me, why she stayed behind. She was too young to understand giving space for her parents, to give us a second when there’s just the two of us. But she did, unconsciously. 

And she was there, still on the couch waiting, patiently. And when she saw us, she smiled. Wild and happy. She climbed down the couch and ran toward Jamie. They met in the middle and he lifted her into his arms.

“Da!”  she cried out in her happiness as she leaned closer to his chest, just as she did before. Before we left. 

“Da has come home, mo nighean bheag. Da’ll never leave ye again,  ” he stated, his voice trembling with emotions, and tears sparkled in his eyes to see his daughter again. To know him here, to know neither of us wouldn’t be lonely and heartbroken ever again, as long as we were together. “Dinna weep, lass,” he shushed Faith as she started weeping. “I’m here, right wi’ ye. E’erythin’ will be almost the same as ‘twas before. Dinna fash, Faith.” She leaned ever more closer to him, resting her chin in the hole under his neck. 

“Miss you,” she whispered into his skin and Jamie held her tighter. 

“I missed you, too, a nighean,” Jamie whispered back, giving her a kiss on her forehead. Tears still sparked in her eyes, but she was happy. More than happy.

I always loved watching them being together—those two were the love of my love. Jamie's always been a wonderful father to Faith. He was caring, gentle, patient with her and he loved her with all of his heart. From the moment he knew about her existence, and the moment she was born Faith was Jamie's sunshine, he treated her like a princess. Secretly, I hoped but also knew, this little one—I placed my hand on my belly—would get the same treatment. 

It was his idea to give the name Faith to her, and after I was exhausted after I had given birth to her I was glad that he gave up naming the baby Dalhousie , so I agreed. And I never regretted that, I loved her name, she truly gave both of us those things that her name means: trust and devotion. And she gave us hope as well. She was like a small candle light in the middle of the night, which actually distracted Jamie's dark thoughts or nightmares from everything that had happened in Wentworth Prison. 

“Sassenach. Have you heard wha’ I said?”

I blinked, coming back to the moment. Jamie’s voice was soft, but tinged with concern. I realized I hadn’t heard a word he’d said in the past minute. My eyes had been fixed on the two of them—my little girl, curled up against her father’s chest like she’d never left it, and the man who’d walked through time for us.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, brushing my fingers through Faith’s wispy curls. “I was thinking.”

Jamie tilted his head, the corner of his mouth quivering slightly. “Good thoughts? Or bad?”

“Both,” I admitted honestly. “But mostly… I’m just happy. My favorite father-daughter duo came back to me.”

“Mama,” Faith said suddenly, lifting her head.

“Yes, baby?”

“Told you. Da here.”

I smiled, heart aching with the truth in her simple words. “You did tell me, didn’t you?”

She nodded solemnly, her thumb still tucked in her mouth. Her eyes, so like his, flicked between the two of us.

“Will you forgive Mama for not believing you?” I asked gently, brushing my knuckles across her cheek.

“Mhm,” she hummed, and I kissed her forehead.

Jamie shifted slightly on the couch, looking at her like she was a miracle he didn’t know how to hold. His hand rested on her small back, protective and reverent.

“I asked…” he began, voice low. “Could ye… ask her what she felt? When I came?”

I looked at him. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” I reached out, covering his hand with mine. “Jamie, I know it’s… hard. You’ve missed so much. But she hasn’t forgotten you. Small steps, remember?”

He swallowed and nodded, turning toward our daughter.

“Faith,” he said softly. “A leannan… what did ye feel, when ye saw Da again?”

Faith blinked at him, thoughtful in the way only a toddler could be. Then she leaned back against his chest, one hand patting his shirt as if trying to figure out how to explain something too big for words.

“Tired,” she finally said.

I smiled. Jamie looked at me, his brows lifting.

“Do you want to tuck her in?” I asked quietly.

He nodded once, slow and unsure. “If… she’ll let me.”

“She will,” I said. “Come on.”

We stood and Jamie carried her gently, cradled in his arms. Her eyes were already heavy-lidded, her head resting on his shoulder, her curls brushing his jaw.

“Da…” she mumbled.

“Aye, mo chridhe?” he murmured, holding her like she was something sacred.

“Home.”

Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, his cheek resting against her hair. “Aye,” he whispered.

“We are.”

And I followed them down the hall, heart full and aching at once. Maybe two months had passed. Maybe it would take time. But when Faith’s hand gripped the collar of Jamie’s borrowed shirt, I knew her body remembered how she did things before. And for now, it was enough. 

Jamie carried Faith down the hall as if she were made of starlight and breath. I followed behind them, quietly watching how carefully he moved, how his arms cradled her with the kind of instinct that doesn’t fade even with time apart.

The door to her room creaked softly as he nudged it open with his foot. The faint scent of flowers drifted out—the sachets I’d tucked under her pillow weeks ago. Everything in that little room was soft and small and hers: the pale yellow quilt, the stuffed rabbit with one bent ear, the bookshelf Jamie had never seen.

He crouched by the bed, laying her down with practiced hands. Faith stirred but didn’t wake fully. Her little brows knit together as if her dreams hadn’t quite let go of her, but then Jamie brushed a thumb over her cheek, and her lips parted with a sleepy sigh.

She turned toward his voice like a flower toward the sun. Her tiny fingers found him and held on.

Jamie knew she was asleep now, after all the excitement, but he said, anyway: “Come to us when you feel insecure or having a bad dream,” he leaned in and kissed her brow, then her curls, then whispered something I couldn’t hear. Gaelic, most likely. A prayer or a promise. Maybe both.

I stood in the doorway, one hand pressed to my mouth.

When he turned toward me, his eyes were shining.

“She sleeps like you,” he said softly, closing the door behind him as we stepped into the hallway.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Aye. Like she’s fighting it. But when it catches her, she goes deep. Safe.” He reached for my hand, and I gave it willingly.

Back in the bedroom— my bedroom—we moved quietly, automatically. The lamp was already lit. He sat on the edge of the bed while I reached for the blanket at the foot. There was stillness between us, but it wasn’t distance anymore. It was heavy. Gravity. All the things we hadn’t said.

I sat beside him. For a moment, we just looked at each other. And then he spoke.

“I thought I would never see ye again.”

The words were raw, spoken into the quiet with no guard, no restraint. Just the truth.

I took his hand. It felt like the first time—like when he reached for me on our wedding night, his touch uncertain but warm, his voice steady as he said, “It’ll help. It’ll be easier if we’re touching.” Back then, it was a comfort laced with newness, a bridge between strangers bound suddenly by vows and fate. Now, it was almost the same… but also not. There was a weight to it now, a quiet knowing. His hand was still strong, still calloused in the same familiar places, but it carried the shape of absence, of time lost and pain endured. We’d lived a lifetime in the space of three years. We’d been husband and wife in every sense, torn apart by time and stitched back together by something beyond reason. And yet, in that moment, touching him again, it felt like no time had passed at all… and also like it had been forever.

“I thought the same.”

He nodded, staring down at our fingers. “After Culloden, I—I didn’t have anythin’. Not you . Not Faith. Only ghosts and dreams.”

“I was a ghost too, Jamie,” I whispered. “Even with Faith, even with the world… I wasn’t whole . Not without you.”

He breathed in slowly, then told me everything. About the dream. About the buzzing. The flowers. About Fergus and the stones and the knowing in his bones that he had to try.

He told me how he plucked the forget-me-nots, thinking of me. How the sound grew louder until it swallowed him whole.

He told me how he was afraid. That it wouldn’t work. That I’d moved on. That he had nothing left to offer me but his name and his hands and his heart. I didn’t cut him off with that was all I needed; I kept listening to him. 

By the time he stopped speaking, I was crying. Silently. He reached up and wiped my tears with both thumbs.

“You’re here,” I said. “You came back to me. You always came back”

“No, mo nighean donn ,” he whispered. “I came home .”

We sat there like that, forehead to forehead, heart to heart, until the night settled fully around us, and the only sound was the distant hum of a sleeping child, safe in the next room.

“I can't believe that you're really here,” I murmured, brushing my mouth on his. Now, I knew everything would be all right.

Chapter Text

I was startled, and woke up with an unusual but still usual warmth beside me. His huge hand rested on the soft curve of my belly, protecting the baby growing inside me. I didn't know he was awake, watching me, sleeping until I turned to him. I touched his face, brushing his forehead with my fingers, memorising him again. 

“I wanted to see if you're really here,” I murmured, and he bent down to kiss me.

“Mebbe I'm a ghost,” he whispered back to my mouth, kissing it again. This time it was slower, deeper.

“Don't even try it, or else—”

“Or else, what, Sassenach?” He teased me and I giggled.

“I will kill you, Jamie Fraser.”

“What a threat,” he continued, and leaned to kiss my temple.

“It is. Will you pack your belongings and go back to the stones now?” I asked, giggling how nothing had changed between us. How could it have changed? We had only lived apart for two months. But that two months was the longest time we had ever lived apart. And I hoped it would never happen again. 

“Never. I belong to you, and you belong to me. I canna see any other option.”

“Good, because neither do I,” I smiled, still keeping my hand on his face, enchanted.

We didn't speak much after this. Keeping eye contact, touching each other, like we were afraid the other might have disappeared if we didn't keep touching. The world outside had long since fallen asleep, but neither of us could sleep. Both of us had unspoken thoughts but we didn't talk about them.  

Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while, and then if I were afraid he wouldn't be there when I woke up, I opened my eyes and I was relieved that nothing had changed. His fingers tracing lazy circles against my skin, a mindless habit that sent warmth curling through me. My head rested against his chest, rising and falling with each breath he took, the steady beat of his heart the only sound I cared to listen to.

I sighed softly, dragged closer, my fingers brushing over his ribs. He hummed in response, shifting slightly so he could tuck me even closer against him, his lips brushing the top of my head in a featherlight kiss.

"Comfortable?" he murmured, his voice thick with sounds of sleepiness. 

"Mm-hmm." My eyes were heavy, my body weightless in the warmth of him. "You?"

"Always," Jamie whispered, his fingers slipping through my hair, slow and soothing. “Since ye’re sleeping beside me again.” He gave another kiss, this time on the tip of my nose. How generous you are, with your kisses, aren't you? Kiss-giver, I thought and smiled at that thought.

After a moment something changed in his body language; he had frozen, he gasped for air faster, like he was drowning. He wanted to hide from me but I felt that something was different than the moment before. 

“Claire…” His voice sounded broken, lost. At first it seemed, he hadn't wanted to talk about that thing but he made a choice to tell what was on his mind.

“What is it? Are you alright, my love?” I asked, I raised my elbow, lifted my head up to see his face clearly.

“I want to talk ‘bout something wi’ ye.”

I froze for a moment. I hadn't known what he wanted to talk about with me, but I knew it was important; he almost never called me by my name.

“Go on. What's that?”

“Culloden.” That it was. The one word that scared the hell out of me. To be frank I wasn't ready for the talk, but I knew if he wanted to talk about it, then I needed to support him in that. But I knew, I was walking on eggshells. I didn't know how to ask him about the things that happened there without getting him offended. 

“Jesus H–” I'm out of breath when I finally talked. “Jamie, you don't have to,” I shook my head, but he nodded, saying ‘I’m ready, Sassenach.’ “It's still too early. But if you really want to tell me what happened, I'll listen to you. Always.”

“I dinna ken exactly what had happened there. I dinna remember—’tis no’ like I want tae remember that day—but mebbe it would help, if I told ye ‘bout it.” He talked fast, first—after a few seconds later I didn't fully understand what he had said. 

”Perhaps it’ll help you. You really don't remember anything about that day?” I asked, drifting back to our good-bye on the hill, not as I wanted to remember the moment when my heart broke, when I had to leave him, knowing I wouldn't see him ever again in this life.

He saw in my eyes, my unspoken thoughts, my memories of that day. He knew what was in my mind. He reached out, touched my face and he caressed my cheek.

“Dinna fash, I can recall everything that had happened before the battle started, but sometimes I’d be happier if I didn't. I hate seeing ye heartbroken, Claire. Ye ken, your the most beautiful thing on earth when ye're smiling.”

I tried to bury the memories of that day in myself. I never wanted to talk about what had happened there, on the faerie hill. Jamie was right. He forced me to leave him and I was heartbroken. I was lonely even before I left, because I couldn't bear the thought of living an entire life without him, growing old and not seeing him with white hair. It was unimaginable. 

Both of us were struggling with the memories of that day and neither of us wanted to talk about it. A part of our soul had died on that bloody day, and we didn't have enough time to heal together our wounds that deepened into our souls.

“But I promised myself,” Jamie went on slowly, thinking about what to say next, tears gathered in his eyes,” when I accidentally travelled to the stones and found myself in yer time that I will never see ye again like that. Promised myself, that when I find ye, you both never be alone and helpless ever again. I'll give you your dream life. The life you deserve.” 

I was touched by his words. Sobbing came out of me like a sudden downpour in the middle of spring. I had no words right at the moment that he's my dream life with the children, but I was too emotional to tell it.

“Christ,” he shushed me, giving gentle kisses on my cheek, but nothing worked, so he pulled me closer and continued. “Havin' imagined ye being lonely, depressed and carryin' all o’ yer problems alone, it breaks my heart again and again. I’d give you everything and more in this world. But I have nothing to give ye. ” He took a deep breath, while he was playing with my hair; he needed something to distract him from his deep thoughts. My favourite kiss-giver had been so deep in thoughts and emotions that he couldn't stop, and I didn't stop him as well. “I never had anything, and never gave you anything you truly deserve, except my mother’s pearls and this wee ring,” he kissed my knuckles where I wore the ring, he didn’t even realise his ring changed its place from my right ring finger to my left ring finger; it was where it truly belonged. “Ye ken I’d give ye everything I have, but now I dinna even have a job or money to buy them. When we first met I was an outlaw, and I'm here, I'm no’ likely a man, I have nothing wi’ which I can protect ye and Faith.

“Jamie, shh, my love. It's alright. I don't need your money or anything else. We were alright without it before. And I don't care where or when we are as long as we're together. My dream life is with you in it.”

I remembered the good old times well, when we were in the past trying to prevent the Jacobite rising. (How could I forget?) And Lallybroch, where we spent a little time after I’d finally decided to stay with him where I really belonged. The days spent at Lallybroch became one of my favourite and happiest days in my life. “But you give me your love and that's what I really need. I love this wee piece of silver, your wedding ring on my finger, because you made it with your love, makes it more special to me. Things you can buy are never as special as if you made them yourself; and your mother's pearl necklace… You give me so much more than simple jewelleries.”

“Yer ring,” he choked on the word when he realised what had changed.

“What's wrong with it?”

“Sassenach, why on earth—?”

“Why on earth what?” 

“It's on your left hand.”

“I’m aware of that,” I murmured.

“But I thought you…you cling to your other ring,” he said, deeply in shock, but in a good one.

“Not anymore, but it's a story for another day. And of your ring, it's where it always belonged.” I didn't add more, it was enough for him and me. The story of Frank could wait, now. First, we had to reconnect, then if I had to, I would talk about my ex-husband.

When we moved closer, it was like we were afraid we might scare each other away. His forehead rested against mine, our breaths mingling in the quiet. Slowly with patient movements, like we were learning each other’s shapes all over again, like our mind forgot everything in those two months, but our body never did. We moved at the same time, curling even more closer. He tilted his head just slightly, brushing his nose against mine—once, twice. I felt the smallest laugh slip from my throat, and his lips curved in response, the warmth of his smile brushing my cheek before his mouth finally found mine. 

“But I canna even protect you like real men do. I'm happy to be here with you, I really am. But how can I put aside those years in my time that the man has his own responsibilities; protect his family, earn a living and take the roof under his family. Christ, it feels like being an outlaw again. I canna do any o’ them; I dinna have a job, ye have a flat—” he came back to his last thought before he realised I changed the place of his wedding ring.

“Our flat,” I corrected him. “Everything is mine, is yours too, Jamie. I'm just a half human without you, I can't be whole if you're not with me.”

“But I could do something,” he insisted. Frasers… stubborn as hell. If something comes to their mind, never let it be lost. They're too determined for that to lose it.

“First, you have to get used to how things work here,” I advised him. ”Don't worry, you'll find your place.”

I was sure he would find his path soon. Whatever he starts, he will be successful at it, and I would be proud that you managed to fit into my—this— time.

“I ken, Sassenach,” his voice wavered for a moment, then swallowed. “I'm so proud of you,” he noted, patting my arm, softly.

“Why?” I was completely lost what he meant by this. I should have said ‘thank you’, but for what?

“Because ye were wonderful in my time. Ye stood on the ground and you made it work. And now I feel how hard it was.”

“Don't forget, everyone thought I'm a spy until I married you. And Jamie, it'll always be easier to know stuff about the past than the future. But I appreciate it, thank you.”

And that was it. He didn't answer, didn't say a word after it. But I still felt he wasn't satisfied, and still lived in doubt and fear. And I didn't know how to help him fight with that thought. But I was there for him to talk to someone who understands him, and for now that would be enough.

Outside, the wind howled against the windowpane, but inside, the world had shrunk down to just the two of us—our bodies tangled beneath the blankets, his warmth pressed against me.

I felt the tension in him before he spoke, the way his fingers trembled slightly as they traced slow, restless patterns on my belly. His breathing was uneven, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek in a rhythm that was anything but steady.

Then, in a hushed, broken voice, he began to speak.

Soft, rhythmic Gaelic, the words slipping from his lips like a prayer—or maybe a confession. The cadence was rough, heavy with emotion, laced with something raw, something aching.

I couldn’t understand most of it, but the words I did catch made my stomach twist. Chan eil mi gu leòr. I'm not enough. Obair. Work. Teaghlach. Family.

His voice wavered on that last word, and I felt his grip on me tighten.

My chest ached. I knew what this was—his fears, whispered into the night when he thought no one could judge him or no one could hear or understand him. The weight of providing, of being enough, pressing down on him until he felt like he was drowning.

I lifted my head, my fingers brushing over his jaw, coaxing him to look at me. His eyes were dark, troubled, stormy with thoughts he hadn’t let himself say in any language I could fully understand.

"You are enough," I whispered. 

His throat worked around a swallow, his gaze searching mine like he wanted to believe me but didn’t know how. And I would happily show him the path to step on.

I cupped his face, pressing my forehead to his. “You are, my— how do you say? Mo ghràdh?” I asked, trying to find the language to him at that moment. “Come here. I love you for you, not the man who you could be if you were born in the twentieth century. You will always be my brave, eighteenth century Highlander. We will find a job that perfectly suits you. I'm here and ready to help you. And as for the family, your family loves you very much. This little one said so at the moment,” I noted that our baby moved for the very first time. 

“He kicked?” he sounded delighted, placing his hand on the soft curve of my belly. 

“Yes, she did,” I said, informing him I changed my mind about whether Faith would have a brother within five months.

“She?”

“Mh-hm. I think our baby's a girl. Would you really mind that?” I teased, knowing he'd be the happiest man alive on the earth if this baby would be a girl, too. 

“Never, Sassenach,” he whispered in awe, brushing his lips to mine, then giving a kiss to my belly through the soft linen of my nightgown.

“Hello there, we one,” he murmured, and I heard he swallowed back his tears. “It’s your da. I promise you I'll keep you safe.”

For a long moment, he just breathed, his hands drawing invisible patterns on my belly, holding on like I—the baby—was his anchor.

I couldn't fight with his inner thoughts, but the only thing I could do was, assure him that he wasn’t alone.

We didn’t speak. Words felt too small for what sat between us.

The rain tapped softly against the window, and the room smelled faintly of him—that warm, familiar scent I’d been aching for in the empty nights. He was close enough that I could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the ones that came from smiling, though right now they were shadowed with something deeper… longing, maybe.

When he touched my cheek, his hand trembled just slightly. Not from hesitation—but from the weight of it all. I leaned into his palm, closing my eyes for a moment, just breathing him in.

“Can we?” He asked slowly, like I was fragile, break any moment.

When his lips finally found mine, it was almost shy. A kiss that lingered, testing, before deepening with a sweetness that made my chest ache.

I broke the kiss and murmured, “Yes,” kissed him, “Yes, we can.” My fingers slid into his hair, the strands soft against my skin, and I felt him sigh into me, as though he’d been holding his breath for four months straight.

His hand slipped from my cheek, down the curve of my neck, and paused at the small swell of my stomach. We both froze for a heartbeat—his palm warm, my breath caught—before his thumb began to trace slow, reverent circles there. His eyes lifted to mine, and I saw them soften in a way that undid me completely.

We didn’t rush. Every button, every touch, was deliberate. His hands mapped the places he remembered, pausing over the ones he’d missed most, as though reminding himself I was real and here. I traced the familiar lines of his shoulders, his back, the place where I always rested my palm when I held him.

When we finally lay together, skin to skin, his arm wrapped under my head and his hand rested over the gentle rise of our child, holding both of us close. It wasn’t about reclaiming what we’d lost. It was about coming home.

His lips pressed to my temple, lingering there, and I realized he was whispering something — not for me to hear, just for himself. A prayer, maybe. Or a thank-you.

I met his gaze, and for a long moment, we didn’t move at all. Just looked at each other, breathing in sync. The world outside could fall apart, but here— in this moment— we were whole again.

The night stretched on in soft silence, the kind that needed no words. Just warmth, just breath, just the quiet certainty that we were exactly where we belonged.

And as sleep finally pulled me under, the last thing I felt was his arms tightening around me, holding me close like he never planned to let me ever again go.

Chapter Text

Sunlight filtered softly through the curtains, casting a golden glow across the tangled sheets and quiet breaths that filled the room. I woke first, still wrapped in the safety of his arms, his hand resting protectively over the gentle curve of my belly.

Jamie’s face was calm in sleep, the worry lines softened, and something about the way he held me made my heart ache with a quiet happiness.

Before I could move even for an inch, I felt a small weight settle next to me. Tiny arms wrapped around my waist, warm and determind. I didn't know when she climbed in our bed but it wasn't a surprise, she got used to it when she had nightmares.

“Mama,” Faith’s sleepy voice whispered. “Bweakfast time.” 

Her head nuzzled against my belly, and I smiled, reaching down to stroke the soft curls of her hair. She wanted to be part of this new beginning, this fragile peace we were building.

Jamie’s eyes fluttered open, catching the moment and melting into the morning with a tenderness that made everything feel right. Just like the times before—two hundred years ago—how our mornings began. 

Jamie sat up, careful not to disturb me, and kissed my forehead and bent down to kiss Faith as well.“G’morning, my loves.”

I squeezed his hand, feeling the life growing inside me—she woke and kicked again—and the family around me. I placed Jamie's hand to the small curve of my belly, letting him to feel how our baby moved. 

Jamie reached for Faith who curled to my side, and she climbed into his hands. He placed her down between us, stroking her brown curls.

“I can get used to mornings like this,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

“You can live it, now,” I whispered and he leaned for a kiss. It was slow with many emotions I couldn't name. It wasn't desperate or hungry, it was a plain “good-morning kiss”.

“Eww…” Faith said, her face twisted into a grimace. “Mama, Da. Stop, now!”

“Why’d we, bunny?” He asked, his voice rough with sleepiness. 

“‘Cause it eww…” 

“It's not when you really love someone you can never have enough kisses,” I smiled, looking at Jamie and then at Faith who was still not quite convinced. 

He reached for my hand and squeezed it tightly, like he believed I could disappear at any moment.

“Pancake,” Faith announced and we couldn't say no for her. Jamie sat up slowly, then he waved me off when I wanted to handle Faith.

“Come to Da, bunny,” he said and manoeuvred her on his hip. “Let's make pancakes!”

The golden sunbeam spilled softly through the kitchen window, slowly warming the wooden table. Faith stood there on a little stool, her cheeks flushed with excitement. I got the ingredients; flour dusted her tiny hands and dotted her tousled hair like fairy dust. The way she acted like she's the queen of all little fairies… the way she was reborn from her dust since her father came home to her, to us; the way she smiled again like she did before was those little tiny things I thought I’d never see again.

“Look, Mommy!” she giggled, proudly holding up a lopsided pancake that was more batter than shape. It wasn't perfect but it was hers. 

“Best pancake I’ve ever seen, lass,” he said, watching from his seat. “Let me help ye.” Faith beamed, then jabbed at the batter with a spoon, flicking some onto the floor and her shirt.

I laughed, wiping flour off her nose. “You’re making quite the mess, sweetheart. But I like this mess you—we—made,” I murmured the last sentence, mostly to myself. 

Jamie stood up, stepped forward, reaching for the mixing bowl. “Let me show you how a real Scot flips a pancake.”

“Jamie,” I said, gently guiding him by the arm and pulling back toward his chair. “Sit down and enjoy.”

He chuckled and as if I said nothing, he reached for the mixing bowl again; eyes twinkling as Faith pouted for a moment, then brightened.

“Da!” she called, jumping down from her stool and grabbing his hand. 

Jamie grinned and scooped her up, spinning her around in a little dance. Suddenly, Faith’s foot slipped, and a splash of batter flew from the bowl—right onto Jamie’s shirt. He froze for a moment, then looked down at the mess and burst out laughing. “Aye, that’s one way to christen the new day.”

I smiled, feeling my belly move with the tiny life inside me. Morning, baby, I thought. If mornings look like this, then you'll have the best life. “What do you two want to do today?” I asked, settling the plate of imperfect pancakes on the table.

Jamie kissed my forehead. “Whatever it is, as long as it’s with you and our wee ones.”

Faith giggled from Jamie’s arms, tugging his nose. “Out, Da!” she commanded, bouncing on her chair, excited. 

“Looks like we’re going to have an adventure,” Jamie said with a grin.

I squeezed his hand, knowing that no matter where the day took us it'll be like walking on a glen full of sunshine.

After breakfast and more chaos I realised I promised Mrs Graham we would visit her.

“Darling,” I said to Faith, “would you like to visit Mrs Graham as today’s adventure?” 

“Mhhm,” she hummed as I helped her to dress up.

“Then, we visit Mrs Graham,” I agreed. “Is it okay with you?” I asked as I turned to Jamie.

He nodded. “Everything’s fine as long as my wi’ ye two. I have tae thank her properly that I'm here wi’ you.”

“She's really our fairy godmother, isn't she?”

“What?”

He looked confused as hell, so I sighed and started to explain: “Fairy godmother is someone who's a fairy but she helps you with her kindness without wanting anything in return.”

“Och, aye, it seems a fair enough description o’ her,” he agreed.

“We go, Mama?” Faith asked, impatiently, her small hands already tugging at my skirt.

“Yes, bunny,” I smiled, smoothing down Faith’s curls before reaching for the car keys.

Jamie stood by the door, stiff as though preparing to march into battle rather than take a motorcar ride. His hand hovered uncertainly over the keys in my palm, his brows knit together.

“It’s no’ natural,” he muttered, eyeing the gleaming car in the drive as though it might bite. “A box of metal hurtlin’ down the road at such speed, wi’ no horse to steady it…”

My lips twitched. “You’ll be perfectly safe, I promise. I’ve been driving since I was sixteen.”

“Sixteen?" He roared in surprise. "You were such a wee lassie then.”

“Perhaps, but it's better than going into a battle. I promise it's safe,” I calmed down his nerves.

Faith scampered ahead, little boots clattering over the step. “Da, come!” she called, her bright voice carrying back. “Sit wi' me!”

Jamie’s expression softened at once. He gave me a wry look, then bent to press a hand against the curve of her belly. “And you, lass or lad whoever you are,” he said quietly to the baby within, “dinna fash. I’ll be watchin’ your mother’s every turn.”

I rolled her eyes, though her throat caught at the tenderness in his voice. 

The ride itself was full of stops and starts, Jamie bracing his hand against the dashboard at every turn. “Christ, Sassenach—ye call that a gentle bend?” he exclaimed once, his knuckles white.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing, while Faith, oblivious, sang to her doll in the back seat. “Mama good dwivew,” she announced proudly. “Daddy scawedy.”

Jamie turned at that, his ears pink. “Scaredy, am I? Just wait till you’re old enough for a horse, wee lass. Then you’ll ken the difference between real ridin’ and bein’ rattled in a tin box!”

And that was the point I couldn't hold back my laughter. Though, the only things he could see of me were my shaking shoulders and my undeniable smile.

By the time we reached Mrs. Graham’s cottage, Jamie had finally unclenched his hands, though his shoulders still carried tension. I leaned over as I parked, my hand brushing his. “See? We survived. No horses necessary.”

Jamie gave her a look that was half scowl, half grin, then reached to lift Faith from her seat. “Aye, well. I’ll no’ deny that I prefer solid ground beneath my feet. But… if this is the way to see ye safe, I’ll learn it.”

I didn't know what to say… my heart smiled again. This man—my man—wanted to learn to drive a car just because he wanted to see me safe—as he always did.

“Shall we?” he asked, Faith nestled against his chest, patting his cheek with all the seriousness.

“Good Dad. Brave Da.”

I couldn’t help it—but I laughed again, full and bright, the sound carrying into the air as we walked up the path toward Mrs. Graham’s door, together.

The soft chime of the doorbell echoed through the quiet cottage. When Mrs. Graham opened the door, Faith bounded forward, throwing her arms around the older woman’s legs.

“Faith Fraser!” Mrs. Graham exclaimed, bending to kiss her curls. “Ye’re as tall as a wildflower already. Are ye going to be as tall as yer da?”

“Hello, Gwaham!” 

I smiled as called her just “Graham” as she always did, I stepped inside, unwinding my scarf from my Mrs. Graham’s gaze swept over me, and the subtle swell of my middle did not go unnoticed. Our eyes met, and Mrs. Graham’s smile deepened with quiet recognition.

“So,” she said softly, her tone both knowing and tender. “It suits you, Claire. It suits you verra well.”

I flushed but didn’t look away. “Seventeen weeks now,” I said, my hand instinctively resting over my belly. “I told you before, but… well. It’s not a secret anymore.”

Mrs. Graham’s eyes glistened with pride and affection. She laid a warm hand on my arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “There’s a glow around ye, and that wasn’t there the last time, I've seen ye.”

Jamie, who had been busy coaxing Faith out of her boots, glanced up at them, brow furrowed slightly. “Glow, is it? She says I see things that arena there, but clearly the women agree,” he teased, though his eyes softened as they lingered on me.

Faith suddenly patted my belly, beaming. “Mama got my baby!” she declared.

I laughed, a little self-conscious, but Mrs. Graham only chuckled, her face alight. “Aye, so she does, Faithie. And it’ll be a blessing on you all.”

For a moment, Claire felt a deep comfort in Mrs. Graham’s words—a reminder that she wasn’t alone in carrying this quiet hope, and that someone else had been with her from the very start.

“Claire, dear, you must rest,” she said gently, guiding me to a couch. I almost started to object but Jamie lightly squeezed my lower arm. So instead of objecting I welcomed the chance to sit while Jamie stepped forward.

Without a word, Jamie moved to the small kitchen, rolling up his sleeves. “Let me help with the tea,” he said quietly, setting about arranging cups and fetching the kettle.

I watched him from my seat, feeling the steady presence of the man I loved, though unaware of the thoughts weighing on him.

He caught my eye and offered a small, tired smile—one that held warmth and something more, something I couldn’t yet name. I returned it, squeezing his hand gently.

Chapter Text

Jamie followed Mrs Graham into the kitchen, his steps quiet on the polished floorboards. The house smelled faintly of old books and the lavender polish Mrs. Graham used on the furniture. He looked back above his shoulder back to Claire as she settled onto the settee, Faith curling contentedly into her lap, her small fingers playing with the fringe of Claire’s shawl. Claire looked peaceful, untroubled—her face tilted toward their daughter, her hand resting absently on the roundness at her middle. She didn’t see the knot twisting in his chest. He was glad of it. Jamie pretended to be normal while he was with her, but his thoughts were chasing each other in a never ending circle. He had naught to give her, save his name—and even that was borrowed here, in this strange place where he was a ghost more than a man. She deserved better. A ring. A symbol. Perhaps, more. Something she could hold when he wasn’t there, something their children would look upon and ken: their da had done right by their mother.

His hands flexed at his sides. He shouldn’t ask. God knew Mrs. Graham had already done enough, taking them in, helping Claire when he could not, when he wasn't there by her side as he should've been. But the need pressed at him, sharp and insistent.

After a moment, when they finally approached the small kitchen, he closed behind them the door, he crossed the room, lowering his voice. “Mrs. Graham,” he said softly, “might I trouble ye a moment?”

She looked up from preparing the tray for her guests. Her keen eyes narrowed just enough to see through him.

He hesitated, shifting his weight, before the words spilled free. “I dinna like to ask, but—there’s something I’ve needed. A ring. For Claire.” His throat tightened, but he pressed on, steady. “I mean to ask her properly, (This time I'll do it properly, he thought) before the bairn comes. I’ll find work soon, and I’ll pay ye back, in my honour.”

Mrs. Graham set aside the kettle, crossing her arms. For a long moment she only looked at him, the silence stretching between them. Then her face softened, her eyes glistening with something like pride.

“Jamie Fraser,” she murmured, “ye’ve already given her more than any ring could hold. But if it’s your heart’s need, then aye. We’ll find a way.”

His shoulders sagged with relief, though he tried not to let it show too plain. “Thank ye,” he said hoarsely. “It really matters to me. She should ken she’s chosen, here as much as she was before.”

Mrs Graham nodded, and picked up the tray with the teapot, cups and biscuits and waved back towards the sitting room with her head. “Let's go back to them, come to me again soon, and we will talk about it,” she said in a gentle tune, then added. “She's lucky to have ye, ye ken.’

From across the room, Faith giggled at something Claire whispered, the sound bright and unburdened. Jamie turned his head toward them, a quiet smile tugging at his mouth.

He’d no fortune, no grand promises. But he’d see Claire wear his ring, and their children grow up knowing their mother had always been loved and chosen—not once, but always.

The car ride home was quiet, save for the hum of the engine and Faith’s soft snores in the backseat. She had fallen asleep almost the instant they’d buckled her in, her small head lolling against the side of the car seat, curls tumbling across her cheek.

Claire smiled faintly, brushing a loose lock of hair from her daughter’s forehead before leaning back. The road stretched ahead, dusky and lined with hedgerows. She turned her gaze to Jamie.

His eyes were steady on keeping an eye on Faith, like he was still afraid she would disappear at any moment. Then, all of a sudden, he looked forward, keeping his eyes looking far away. He hadn’t spoken much since they left Mrs. Graham’s. Every now and then, she caught the way his thumb rubbed his palm, a nervous habit he didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she murmured after a moment, keeping her voice soft so as not to wake Faith.

He glanced at her, a flicker of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Just thinkin’, Sassenach.”

Claire studied him, her brow arching. “That’s never a simple answer with you.”

“Nothin’ to worry ‘bout,” he said simply, studying her beautiful face.

He chuckled under his breath, but the sound was low, subdued. His jaw worked as though he weighed what to say, then he only shook his head as she patted his arm in disbief. “Naught to trouble ye with. Truly.”

She reached out, laying her hand lightly over his wrist, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the fabric of his sleeve. “Jamie. I can feel it when something sits on you like this. You don’t have to carry it alone.”

For a heartbeat, his eyes softened, his mouth parting as though the words might tumble free—but then he swallowed them back. “Soon, mo nighean donn,” he said quietly. “I’ll tell ye soon. For now… just let me look at ye.”

Claire felt her chest tighten, her breath catching as his eyes lingered on her. The weight of his gaze made her heart stir—as though he was memorising her, keeping something sacred close.

She leaned back a little in her seat, squeezing his wrist once before letting go, though her mind buzzed with questions.

Whatever it was he held back, she knew it wasn’t distance. No—it was something else, something that made the corners of his mouth soften and his gaze warm each time it slid to her.

Faith sighed in her sleep, her thumb slipping into her mouth, and Claire turned to watch her daughter in the backseat. She didn’t press Jamie further, but the silence between them felt tender, not heavy.

She would wait. He would tell her when he was ready.

And when he did, she knew it would be something born of love.

It was a rare morning when the air was clear and bright, the early June sun soft enough to warm without pressing heavy. Faith skipped along the path at the park, her curls bouncing as she chased pigeons with wild giggles. Jamie followed behind, long strides shortened so he wouldn’t lose her, one hand loosely in his pocket, the other holding her little bonnet she had discarded in her play.

“Dada! Look!” she squealed, crouching down by the pond’s edge to point at a duck paddling furiously after another.

Jamie chuckled, lowering himself beside her. “Aye, that one’s in a hurry, no? Maybe he thinks the other has a bit of bread.”

Faith laughed and clapped, her joy bursting like bells in the air. Jamie drank in the sight of her, the weight of it sitting warm in his chest. He could scarcely believe this life: a daughter’s laughter, a wife’s smile waiting at home, another bairn growing in Claire’s belly.

When Faith tired of the ducks, he scooped her up into his arms, settling her easily against his chest. “Time we head home, a leannan. Mama will be wonderin’ where we’ve got to go.”

She rested her cheek against his shoulder, thumb creeping into her mouth. Jamie smiled faintly, carrying her along the cobbled street that edged the park. His eyes wandered, as they always did, cataloguing this strange new world he’d been thrust into—the rows of brick shops, the signs painted in neat script, the glint of motorcars trundling past. It was everything and nothing the Inverness he knew before.

And all of a sudden he saw it.

A jeweller’s window.

He hadn’t meant to stop—only to glance, the way one’s eyes catch on something shining. But his feet slowed of their own accord, his heart tightening, because there, nestled in velvet beneath the glass, was a ring.

Not the grandest in the case. Not the brightest, nor the largest. But it caught him. Silver, warm and steady. In its centre, an opal, iridescent and alive, holding within it a shimmer that seemed to shift with every breath of light. Beside it, flanking in perfect symmetry, two small emeralds, green as spring leaves, fierce and unwavering.

He stood still as stone, Faith drowsing against his chest, his eyes fixed upon it. Something stirred deep in him—not simply recognition, but a sense that this was no accident.

Jamie swallowed hard, a heat pricking at his eyes. Aye, they were birthstones—Claire’s and his own, though he scarcely cared for such fancies. But this… this was more. 

He pressed a kiss to Faith’s hair, whispering into her curls, “That’s the one, lass. That’s the one I’ll give your mama.”

“What, Da?”

“Nothing, a leannan. Soon, you'll see yerself. But promise me my secret is safe wi’ ye.” She nodded enthusiastically, bouncing in his embrace as he forced himself to walk on. 

He had no coin. Not yet. But when he had it, he would come back. He could still see it when he closed his eyes, shimmering there in the window as though it had been waiting for him.

That night, long after Faith had been put to bed and Claire had dozed beside him, Jamie lay awake. The weight of the ring filled his chest. He thought of the jeweller’s little shop, the silver catching lamplight, the way Claire’s face would soften when he slipped it onto her finger and asked her—truly asked her—to bind herself to him again in this new time. 

He couldn't let himself lose it. It was the one and he had to do it, he didn't want to lose it. 

He rose early the next morning.

Faith was still in bed, and Claire, worn with her pregnancy, slept deeply. Jamie kissed her brow, murmuring, “Rest easy, mo chridhe,” and slipped out into the crisp dawn.

The bell above the jeweller’s door tinkled as he pushed it open. The shop smelled faintly of polish and metal, of velvet-lined cases and glass carefully wiped. Behind the counter, a man of middle years looked up, spectacles perched on his nose.

“Good morning,” the man said warmly. “Something in particular you’re after?”

Jamie’s eyes went at once to the case where it lay. His chest tightened when he saw it still there, waiting. “Aye. That one.”

The jeweller followed his gaze and smiled faintly. “Ah, the opal and emerald piece. You’ve a good eye. Not many men notice that one—they all go for the diamonds.”

Jamie stepped closer, leaning in to look at it properly without glass between them. The opal seemed to shift like water, alive with hidden fire. The emeralds stood like guardians on either side, fierce and steady.

He cleared his throat. “Tell me, sir… what do the stones mean?”

The jeweller’s brow lifted, pleasantly surprised. Not many men asked him about the meanings of the stones. He took the ring out with a gloved hand, letting it catch the light. “Well, the opal has long stood for truth and devotion—it’s said to hold the flame of the heart, ever shifting, ever alive. The emeralds are loyalty, faithfulness, rebirth. In some cultures, they’re the stones of second chances.”

Jamie’s throat closed. His hand curled into a fist against the counter to steady himself. “Second chances,” he echoed low, almost to himself.

The jeweller studied him for a moment, then his voice softened. “For someone you love?”

Jamie looked up, his eyes unflinching. “For my wife. For the life we’ve fought for, across more than you could ken.”

The man nodded slowly, as though he understood more than he let on.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Jamie said, his voice firm though his ears burned. “I’ve no’ the coin for it today. But I mean to pay. I’ll take any work I can find to do it honestly. I only ask… keep it aside for me. It belongs to her. It was made for her.”

The jeweller tilted his head, studying Jamie with a craftsman’s eye—not just the way he spoke, but the strength in his hands, the steady set of his shoulders.

“What sort of work have you done?” the man asked.

Jamie hesitated only a moment. “Farmer. Soldier. Sometimes a smith. I’ve built, mended, worked leather, wood, and horseflesh. But my wife is a healer, I've learned many things from her as well. I learn quick.”

The jeweller tapped the counter thoughtfully, then smiled. “I could use someone with strong hands and an eye for detail. Deliveries, repairs, polishing. It’s not grand work, but it’s honest. And it would cover more than a ring.”

Jamie blinked, his breath catching. “You’d have me?”

“If you’d have the work,” the man said simply.

Jamie exhaled slowly, relief and hope flooding him in equal measure. He nodded once, firm. “Aye. I’ll do it. Every hour you’ll give me.”

The jeweller held out his hand, and Jamie clasped it tightly, a promise sealed.

The ring glimmered between them, waiting.

The jeweller wrapped it into a small blue velvet box and handed it to Jamie.

“Go, ask her, make her happy, because from what I can see you're a unique man. Your lady is lucky to have you,” he said, then added he would start on the next Monday. Jamie nodded, thanked him and he slipped out of the shop.

It was settled. Now, he had to find the perfect moment; and he was eager to do it as soon as it was possible. 

Chapter Text

Jamie’s hand brushed the little box in his pocket for what must’ve been the hundredth time that day. The weight of it felt far heavier than stone and metal, heavier even than the swords he once bore. This was no weapon, though—it was a promise. A vow he meant to give Claire, not with hurried words in a world torn apart, but properly. Here, in this very strange new life, where he had been given the impossible gift of her again.

He sat at the small desk in their room, the evening lamplight pooling golden across the wood. Faith’s soft laughter drifted faintly from the sitting room, Claire’s voice following close behind, warm and lilting. For a moment, Jamie closed his eyes. He had been given more than he ever dared pray for. A loving wife, a child, another bairn on the way. Yet part of him still longed to give Claire the thing he’d been denied before—a proper asking, a ring upon her hand that spoke not only of love but of choice. Something he couldn't give him before, something which wasn't hurried but chosen.

He opened the box again, unable to resist. The opal and emerald glimmered together in the low light. He traced the stones with a finger, remembering what the jeweller had said—hope, truth, faithfulness, and rebirth. Aye, they were birthstones too, but to him they were more. They were her. They were the life they’d carved from ash and time, proof that their souls could not be parted, no matter the years or worlds between. It was meant to be hers. He was meant to be hers.

Jamie set the box down, and he began rehearsing under his breath. He felt foolish, like a lad again, but he wanted the words to be right.

“Claire… ye were my wife from the moment I laid eyes on ye.”

“Sassenach, will ye take my hand again—not out of need, but choice?”

“You’re my home. Let me be yours again.”

Each attempt faltered. He laughed softly at himself, shaking his head. “Christ, Fraser, ye faced the gallows with less fear than a simple proposal.”

Rising, he crossed to the window. The morning stretched wide and quiet over the village, so different from the heather hills of Lallybroch, yet for the first time it felt like home—because she was here. He pressed a palm to the glass and imagined her smile, the spark in her eyes when she realised what he meant to do.

Tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after, when the moment was right. He would not rush it. But he swore to himself—before the bairn was born, Claire would wear this ring. And she would know, without doubt, that he chose her anew, every day, with every breath. Always.

Jamie tucked the box back into his pocket, unseen for a while, his heart pounding like a drum. The next chapter of their life was waiting, he just had to be courageous enough to ask her, properly this time, to marry her in this new life.

Jamie turned the little box over in his hand, again and again, as though the motion might conjure the answer he needed. The ring was perfect, aye, but how to give it? In his world, he would’ve taken her up to the hill behind Lallybroch they liked so much, where the air carried the song of larks. He would’ve set her upon a blanket, poured whisky from his flask, and asked her plain and true.

But here…

He glanced around the small flat. The wallpaper was peeling, the table scarred from years of use, the single lamp buzzing faintly. He couldn’t bring himself to put this ring on her finger here. Claire deserved more.

He’d thought of supper—aye, a grand meal with wine and candlelight. He’d seen it in the shop windows, the way couples sat together in restaurants (as he had learnt the name of those cozy buildings). But cooking was beyond him. He could boil oats and roast meat over a fire, but the kitchen here baffled him—metal knobs, dials, an oven that seemed to glare at him in defiance. As for money… his jaw tightened. What coin he had was barely enough for bread and milk, let alone fine dinners.

And so he planned. He wandered the city when Claire thought him he was in the park with Faith, searching for the place. A park with tall trees, a quiet corner of the river, even a bridge lit with soft lamps at dusk. Each one he rejected, none of them good enough for the vow he meant to give her.

At night, he would sit at the wee table with Faith asleep in the next room, scribbling lists on scraps of paper.

• Start your job as soon as you can.

• Save for a supper.

• Learn to cook something besides parritch.

•Speak to Mrs. Graham about a place… maybe her garden?

He would fold the list, tuck it in his pocket, and sit staring at Claire as she brushed her hair, the lamplight making her glow. And every time, the thought came: She deserves more than I can give.

And yet, when she would look up suddenly and smile at him, he would think—Or perhaps… All she wants is me.

The box burned against his thigh. The perfect moment hadn’t yet come. But Jamie Fraser was a stubborn man, and he would find it—even if he had to scour this whole new world to give his Sassenach the asking she deserved.

Jamie had turned over a hundred plans in his mind—gardens and suppers, candlelight and speeches—but in the end, it was none of those. The right moment came quietly, as many true things did.

It was late, the flat hushed but for the soft breaths of Faith asleep in her wee room. Claire was brushing out her hair by the window, the strands catching the lamplight like spun gold. He sat watching her, the weight of the box in his pocket nearly unbearable now.

He rose, heart pounding like a drum, and crossed to her. She glanced up, surprised at the look on his face.

“Jamie?”

He took her hand, holding it steady between both of his. “Claire… I’ve naught to offer ye but myself. No house, no money no fine supper to lay before ye. Only my word. And that’s a man’s bond, same as his life.”

Her brows softened, her lips parting. He drew out the little box, opening it with a tremor. The opal and emerald glinted, plain but bright, and his throat closed for a moment.

“I’d ask ye, here and now—will ye take me? Not as the husband I once was, or ought to be, but as the man I am before ye. Will ye wed me, truly and freely, for as long as we both shall draw breath?”

He did not kneel. Instead, he stood tall before her, hand outstretched, the vow spoken plain as a Highland oath.

Claire’s eyes glistened. She pressed her hand to her mouth, then laughed a little through her tears. “Oh, Jamie. Yes. Yes, of course.”

He slipped the ring onto her finger, next to his old silver wedding band he had made for her when they first wed. The stones of the ring caught the lamplight, and for a moment the world fell away—no strange century, no worries of money, no ghosts of the past. Only her hand in his, the promise sealed, as natural and eternal as breathing.

Behind them Faith stirred in her sleep, giving a soft little sigh. Claire leaned into Jamie’s chest, her head against his heart, and he whispered into her hair, “Ye'll never want for my love, Sassenach. That I swear.”

“I know,” she breathed, because that was the truth; from day one, back in two hundred years ago, she had never felt she wasn't loved. Not for a single moment. “Let's go to bed.” They quietly slipped into their bedroom, carefully not to wake up Faith sleeping in the next room.

Jamie turned the ring gently on her finger again, his hand almost reverent as he held hers.

“This time,” he said, voice rough, “ye wear it because ye wish it, no’ because anyone forced ye. It’s no duty, no bargain. Just us. Just love.”

Claire’s breath caught. She remembered all too vividly—ink drying on a page, a vow made with the crack of a whip hanging over his head. She was attracted to him even then, but it had been a necessity as much as a desire. Now, here in this quiet, he had chosen her freely—and she him.

Her lips curved, slow and knowing. “I’ve always wanted you, Jamie Fraser. From the first time you called me ‘Sassenach,’ even when you scowled at me.”

His brows lifted, startled by the spark in her tone. She leaned closer, her voice lowering to a tease.

“And if I recall correctly,” she murmured, her mouth brushing his ear, “you’ve always been rather…magnetic yourself.”

Heat rushed through him at her words, at the wicked glint in her eyes. “Aye?” he whispered, his hand sliding to her waist.

“Oh, yes.” She kissed him—soft at first, then lingering, tasting of fire and promise. “Ring or no ring, Jamie…there’s never been anyone else for me.”

He groaned softly, gathering her against him, forehead pressed to hers as he tried to steady his breath. “God help me, Sassenach, I’ll spend every day of my life proving ye right.”

The laughter in her throat melted into another kiss, slow and tender but edged with that old familiar hunger—two souls who had found each other once more, and this time on their own terms.

The ring glimmered faintly in the lamplight, but Jamie saw only her—the way her lips curved, the warmth in her eyes that made his heart stutter. 

“Ye truly want this, Sassenach?” he whispered again, needing to hear it once more, to brand the words onto his very soul.

Claire touched his face, thumb stroking the line of his jaw. “I’ve always wanted this—with you. I’ve always wanted you.”

He swallowed hard, his chest tightening with a mix of relief and reverence. Slowly, he leaned in, kissing her with a gentleness that belied the strength in him, lips brushing hers as though she might vanish if he pressed too hard.

She sighed into him, her fingers threading into his hair, pulling him closer. The kiss deepened, soft but sure, and when she shifted, guiding his hand to rest against the swell of her belly, his breath caught.

“The bairn,” he murmured against her lips, voice breaking. “I’ll be careful.”

“I know.” Her smile was tender, her eyes shining. “I trust you, Jamie.”

Those words undid him more than any touch could. He gathered her against him, laying her gently back against the cushions; his movements were slow, reverent. He kissed her again and again, mapping her lips, her cheeks, her brow, her middle as though carving his devotion into her skin.

What followed was no hurried frenzy, but a careful weaving together—their bodies moving with a quiet rhythm, guided by love rather than urgency. He held her as though she were made of glass, every touch deliberate, every breath filled with awe.

Claire’s fingers clutched at his shoulders, her eyes never leaving his. “Jamie…” she whispered, her voice breaking with both desire and devotion.

“Let go, mo chridhe. Let go now, come for me,” he groaned as she let go, holding her through, still afraid none of this was true and the next morning he’d wake up alone, hiding from the Redcoat patrol.

Later Claire lay curled against Jamie’s chest, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, his hand splayed protectively over the gentle swell of her belly.

For a long while, neither spoke. Their breaths mingled in the hush, the world narrowed to the warmth of the other’s skin.

Jamie’s fingers traced lazy circles over her side, reverent. “God,” he whispered finally, his voice low and rough. “Ye’ve no idea… how it feels. To be given this chance again. With you. Wi’ her”—his hand pressed lightly against her stomach—“with both of ye. Three of ye,” he corrected himself.

He closed his eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath. Silence returned, but it was companionable. Jamie shifted slightly, lowering his lips toward her belly, and Claire watched as he rested his cheek there. His voice, when it came, was soft and reverent.

“D’ye hear me, wee lass? Or lad?” His smile crooked as he kissed her gently. “Your mama is the bravest soul I’ve ever kent. And I… I’ll do all I can to be worthy of both of ye.”

Claire’s hand slid into his hair, stroking gently as tears slipped silently down her cheeks. It was too much and not enough, this man, this love, this life.

“Jamie,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

He lifted his head, meeting her gaze. She leaned forward, kissing him with a quiet desperation, and when they parted, their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you,” she breathed.

His smile trembled, eyes shining in the dim light. “And I, you. Forever.”

The house hushed around them. For the first time in a long time, Claire felt wholly at peace—wrapped in her husband’s arms, their child safe between them, their future theirs to claim.

The morning broke soft and pale, light filtering through the thin curtains of the wee flat. Jamie lay awake already, Claire warm against him, her hand curled over his chest where the ring still caught the faintest shimmer from the window.

He couldn’t stop looking at it. The ring he had bought with borrowed coin, chosen with his heart… and still, doubt gnawed at him. Should he have waited? Found a grander way, something fitting for her—this brilliant, fierce woman who deserved all the world? In his own time, he couldn't offer anything either, like here, he had nothing but himself, and it felt nothing compared to what he should have had: a house, money. Claire stirred, blinking awake. “You’re staring,” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.

“Aye,” he admitted, brushing a curl from her forehead. “I was thinking… perhaps I should have done more. A fine meal, flowers, music, all the things folk in this time seem to expect. I fear it was too plain, what I gave ye.”

Her lips curved, tender and sure, as she lifted her hand so the ring caught the morning light. “Jamie… do you truly think I care about flowers and fine meals?”

He swallowed, his chest tightening. “Ye deserve them, Sassenach. More than any woman alive. And all I gave ye was words in the dark.”

She shifted, pushing herself up so she was leaning over him, her hair tumbling like a veil around them both. “Words in the dark from you mean more to me than a thousand roses or candlelit dinners. You gave me your vow, Jamie. That’s all I’ve ever needed. That’s all I’ll ever need. And a highlander never breaks their vow.”

He breathed out slowly, the tension easing as he searched her eyes. She kissed him then, soft and unhurried, the weight of her promise steady as the ring upon her finger.

When she drew back, her smile was wicked and fond. “Besides,” she teased, “if you ever try to pull some grand gesture, I’ll probably ruin it by laughing halfway through.”

Jamie chuckled, pulling her down against him, pressing his face into her hair. Relief surged warm through his chest, his doubts melting like mist under the rising sun.

“Plain or grand,” he murmured into her ear, “ye’ll always be mine.”

“And you,” she whispered back, her fingers curling into his shirt, “will always be mine.”

Claire touched again, to make sure that last night wasn't a dream, and the ring was there so as the opal and emerald, catching the soft glow of the sunlight. For a moment, the room seemed to still—the air thick with quiet, with love, with promises not yet spoken but already kept.

Then a small gasp broke the silence.

“Mama!” Faith’s eyes were wide, her curls bouncing as she scrambled closer. “That the pretty!”

Claire blinked. “The pretty? What do you mean, sweetheart?”

Faith nodded furiously, grabbing her mother’s hand with both of hers and lifting it like a prize. “Da show me. In window. I say, ‘Mama like!’” She beamed, proud of her memory.

Claire turned to Jamie, surprise and laughter trembling on her lips. “You took her with you?”

Jamie’s ears burned red, but he smiled, his hand brushing through Faith’s curls. “Aye. She was wi’ me that day. We were walking home from the park when I saw it. She said it was meant for ye.”

Claire’s eyes softened, her heart swelling so full she thought it might burst. She kissed Faith’s temple, then looked back at Jamie, tears shining.

“Then it seems, my love, this ring was chosen by both my Frasers.”

Faith giggled, content with her part in the story, and curled into Claire’s side, still clutching her mother’s hand like she never wanted to let go of the sparkle on her finger.

Jamie reached out and covered both their hands with his own, his voice rough with quiet awe.

“Aye. Chosen by love itself.”