Work Text:
April 12, 1917
My Sassenach,
You’ll be glad to hear that I was lucky enough to come through once more. But if hell is any worse than this, I wish to God I had never committed a sin.
I have lost about fifty men today in Roclincourt — I should say ‘lads’, because that’s what they were; not much older than wee Ronnie McNab. We just buried a private from Kinross. He could have been my brother, and I thanked Christ that he wasn’t. I shall always grieve for Willie’s death, but it is comforting to know that he passed in our mother’s arms, untouched by this senseless violence.
Forgive me, mo nighean donn, for my gloomy spirits. It has been a long night, but me and Ian are well, all things considered, and I find strength in the knowledge that you are safe in Lallybroch.
I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve found a small bed of watercress behind the front line. Major Grey saw me eat it and found the idea very amusing, but I told him I would rather graze like a cow than lose my teeth to scurvy, and that put an end to it.
The division is resting now, after three days of shelling — except for the last one, it has been raining or snowing steadily. The mud is knee-deep in places, but the wee socks you sent are keeping my feet warm (among the many wonders of this bloody war, you taking up knitting is perhaps the most unexpected one, my Sassenach). Since you asked — I do remember to take off my boots and dry my socks every day, so do not worry on my account. No need to trouble yourself about a towel, but perhaps Da could get me a shaving brush to send in the next parcel, and I should be glad of another tin of honey biscuits, if it is not too much to ask.
This letter will be posted from London by one of our Lieutenants who is on leave. I must close; I expect we will be going on again soon. I tried to get some sleep, but found I would rather write to you, my soul, and have the illusion of your company. It's been two months now. What I wouldn’t give to touch you, Sassenach, to go back to that summer afternoon on top of the hill, you laying next to me in the grass, tasting of sunshine and sweet apples…
You know I’m not afraid to die. But since the thought of being parted from you so soon is more than I can bear, I will endeavour to keep the promise I made you.
For now, send my love to all, and be assured that I remain
Your loving and devoted husband
James
***
I reached to pick beans from the lower vines, throwing them in a wicker basket that sat against the garden fence, and stood up at last, my knees stiff after spending an hour crouching in the dirt.
The sun was still hiding behind the horizon, and the air smelled of cold earth and damp, sweet grass. It would be a beautiful day, very similar to the one Jamie had described so vividly in his last letter. I had read it every night as I waited for his return, the thin paper almost tearing in some places, memorizing every word like a prayer.
After a month of agonizing silence, I’d received a short telegram from a field hospital in Duisans. Having been wounded during the battle of Amiens, Lieutenant James A. M. M. Fraser and Sergeant Ian A. R. MacLeod Murray were to be transferred from Dover to Inverness by hospital train on May 12th, 1917.
Wartime, I’d realised, made certain words lose their significance, and others carry a great deal of weight.
Alive.
This one had turned our lives into a succession of moments, like the shaky grainy frames of one of the silent movies I’d seen in London.
There were the happy ones, bursting with colour and relief. Jenny and I, each holding Brian’s arms, afraid he would collapse on the platform. Our two men in the crowd, leaning on each other like survivors of a shipwreck. My knees buckling as my eyes met Jamie’s. His arms wrapped around me, and his chest against my cheek, way too thin, but startlingly warm, and as solid as ever. The deep, rattling sobs that convulsed my whole body. The long ride to Lallybroch in Brian’s carriage. That first night in our bed, not speaking, not making love, just tracing each other’s bodies with our fingertips. We had been highly aware of every nuance, every hollow, a broken nose, a palm cut by a scythe; avoiding the raw places, exploring with infinite care. Drawing the contours of us.
Even now, two months later, when I saw his tall silhouette in the estate, walking towards me from the distance, the evening sun setting his hair on fire, it took my breath away. Still there, thank God. Still mine.
There had been darker moments, too. His refusal to set a foot in our home before he could take a bath in the yard. His silent mourning for what had been lost—Ian’s leg, amputated to the knee; Jamie’s right ring finger, gone; his back ravaged by shrapnel. The light that seemed to drain from his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. The smile that never quite reached his eyes. His careful avoidance of the stables. The way his spirit seemed to withdraw into himself after we’d made love, retreating in silence.
I’d had no doubt that these wounds would heal, in time—and that my love and stubbornness would be enough to see us through.
Until last night.
The memories flashed before my eyes once more. You should have known better than to touch him. The hardness of the floor under my back. The sweat darkening his hair, making the curls cling to his forehead. The blind rage in his reddened eyes, staring through me into the abyss, and his hands squeezing, black stars darkening my vision…
I closed my eyes, and swallowed. Another minute, and...
“He wouldn’t have!”
I hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but the words had poured out of me, daring the insidious voice to challenge me.
Are you sure?
“Yes, I bloody am!” I mumbled between clenched teeth.
I remembered the look of horror on Jamie’s face, the way he’d let go of me, staggering like a wounded man. But what if… Impatiently, I wiped the tears running down my face with the back of my hand. Taking in a large gulp of air, ignoring the burning sensation in my windpipe, fading away but still much too real, I bent once more to pull out stubborn weeds from a bare patch of soil, with the same prayer on my lips.
Come back to me, James Fraser.
***
I sat at the kitchen table for hours, shelling beans mechanically, this simple chore training my mind to slow down. All it took was a light squeeze to pop the pod open, and I would run my finger down the inside of the soft shell, forcing the peas out before dropping them into a large bowl. Every once in a while, I stopped to plunge a hand deep into the cool mass of light-green marbles, feeling them roll against my fingers.
“Claire.”
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t heard Jamie as he entered the kitchen, hadn’t seen him stretch out his good hand to the vulnerable space just above my collarbone, toward the hollow of my neck, and as he said my name, his touch seared me like a hot brand. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, but it was too late. For the first time in my life, I had flinched from my husband’s touch.
There was just enough time for me to turn around and see the hurt and shame in his eyes, before he avoided my gaze and braced himself against the window.
I wanted to scream, to cry, to break something, to tell him I hadn’t meant for this to happen. I wanted to hurt him, to shake him, to make him pay for three years of absence. I wanted him to swallow my fears with his mouth, engulf me in his embrace. I wanted to hold him against me like a child, cradle his face on my lap. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Most of all, I wanted to hear him laugh again.
Pushing back my little wooden stool, I stood up and rested my forehead against his back. Every muscle was hot and stiff as iron under the damp linen of his shirt. Slowly wrapping an arm around his waist, I pressed my left hand firmly against his heart, urging him to breathe together as one.
Finally, his body relaxed ever so slightly. He turned around, brought my hand to his lips, and kissed my wedding ring, a pledge of allegiance. We stood in silence, forehead against forehead, our nine fingers intertwined like vine between our chests, finding some semblance of peace in the empty kitchen.
A moment later, he reached again to touch my face. “Is it me?” he asked quietly. “Can ye not bear me?” As his fingers brushed my cheek, he seemed to think better of it and took a step back. “I dinna blame ye, Claire, for I can barely bear myself.”
“No.” Taking a deep breath, I shook my head, furiously swallowing the tears that threatened to overwhelm me once again. “Jamie, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to wake you, it was— ”
“Ye have nothin’ to apologise for.” His voice was low and husky, the frown between his brows deepening. “Ye were just trying to help. And I… I...” He blinked, looked away, and suddenly slammed his left fist on the table, with such force that I startled, feeling the ground shake under my feet. “To think of what I could have done to ye—...without—...”
I could hear the endless rage and despair in his voice, and he was white as a sheet, as if drained of all blood.
“Jamie, I am fine,” I protested, forcefully. “It was just a dream, and it’s over. I know you would never hurt me.”
“Ye dinna ken that. I already have.” Slowly, like a haunted man, he traced the thin red marks on the side of my neck, and shuddered deeply. “From now on, we’ll be sleeping separately. I’ll ask Mrs. Crook to prepare the blue bedroom.”
“What? No, this is—…” I made a small choking noise, and took his hand again. “I won’t have it, do you hear me? I am your wife, and you will sleep in our bed, whether you like it or not!”
“And I am still yer husband, Sassenach, no matter how damaged,” he growled, grabbing me by the shoulders, “and I will make sure ye’re safe, if it’s the last thing I do!”
He was going for the door and I ran to him, leaning on the knob, anger bubbling up in my chest.
“No! Don’t you dare walk away from me!” My voice rose with each word, and I couldn’t stop it. “Talk to me, God damn it! You’ve been gone for three bloody years, and you’ve barely said a word about it!”
It wasn’t an understatement. I knew, from his letters, that these years had been marked by violence and heartbreak. I knew that he had been thrown to the ground by a burst of machine gun fire as he ran to help Ian. I knew that they had spent one day and one night in a ditch, waiting for someone to get them away. But I hadn’t gathered enough courage to press him for details, relying on the fact that he could talk to his friend, and perhaps selfishly convincing myself that I ought to give him time. Evidently, I had been wrong.
“And then what?” He turned around and stared at me, jaw set in defiance. “What is it exactly that ye want me to talk about, Claire?” His fierce growl came inches from my face, and he gestured with a sense of helpless rage. “About the men I killed, or the ones I lead to their deaths? About all their bones, sticking out from the sides of the trenches because we didna have time to give them a proper burial? Or about the lad who forgot his gas helmet, just the once, that I had to watch choke to death, without being able to do a damned thing about it?”
My blood had suddenly turned to ice water, and I simply stood there, grabbing the sides of my skirt until my knuckles turned white, unable to say a word, praying for him to stop talking. But he wouldn’t.
“Or maybe d’ye want to hear about those braw wee horses I saw being ripped open by shrapnel, their limbs scattered across the fields? About how I had to shoot them myself, because nobody else would?”
“Jamie, you—”
“I prayed not to die in that hole, Claire.” His voice was low and husky now, and he stared at me, his eyes burning with a cold fire. “There was blood filling the ditch. I didna ken if it was Ian’s, or mine… I felt it running from my back and shoulders around my ears, in my neck. When I dream, I swear I can still taste it in my mouth.”
I took a deep breath, feeling dizzy. But I owed him not to look away, so I held his gaze, tears quietly running down my cheeks, just like his blood had ran on the desolate plains of Northern France.
“I kept begging the stretchers walking by to take Ian. Either they had their own men to look after first, or they would be back soon. They never came back.” He suddenly looked very tired, and paused for a while. His face was still turned towards me, but I was not certain what he was looking at. “So aye, I prayed. I asked God to let us live, to let me see yer face again—one more time...”
His voice broke, with the sound of wood cracking and splitting under an ax.
“But perhaps this is my punishment for my crimes. To return to ye a dead man, without ever being able to touch ye again, for fear of hurting ye.”
“You are not dead, do you hear me?” I took a step towards him, held his face between my hands, and stared up at him. “We will get through this. I’m not afraid!”
He let out a breath of a laugh, and wiped the tears from my face with his thumbs.
“I ken ye’re not. But I am.” His hand was cold against mine, and the resolve in his eyes didn’t falter. “Ye are my heart, Sassenach, and I could have killed ye today.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he pressed his lips to my hair, his voice dropping to a whisper: “I canna risk ye again, not ever. We will sleep separately.”
With that, he turned around and left the kitchen, never looking back. I followed the echo of his footsteps in the hallway, and as the front door closed behind him, I bent above the iron sink and retched in a bucket of discarded bean shells.
***
Well past midnight, unable to sleep, I heard Jamie climb the stairs and walk straight across the hall. The air in the main bedroom was so stifling I could have cut it with a knife, but my hands and feet were as cold as ice, with hundreds of pins and needles pricking the skin all over.
“The hell with your stubbornness, James Fraser!” I pushed back the covers with a groan and stood up. “I won’t have it, do you hear me?”
Slipping into a thin robe, I crossed the doorstep and tiptoed across the corridor. In the semi-darkness, I walked past the familiar row of paintings. A few landscapes, representing the hills of Broch Mordha and the wool fair in Inverness, and several portraits—Jamie and Willie as children, riding a rocking horse. Jenny in a white dress, feeding birds. I stopped in front of the last one. Laying a hand on the frame surrounding Ellen Fraser’s regal face, I prayed for strength, and entered the room, ready to confront my husband.
Jamie laid on his back, arms crossed behind his neck. His eyes were closed, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping. So far up North, at the end of July, the sun practically never set, and I could already see light filtering through the thick curtains. Wordlessly, I took off my robe, standing in nothing but my night shift. Alarmed by the rustle of fabric, Jamie sat abruptly in bed, blinking.
“What d’ye think ye’re doing?”
“I’m going to bed. With my husband,” I answered matter-of-factly, and proceeded to stand in front of the mirror and remove the pins that held my hair in place, one by one.
“Claire…”
“For better and for worse,” I said calmly, dropping another pin on the dressing table. “We made a vow, remember?”
Our eyes met in the mirror.
“Aye... I remember.” He threw his legs on the side of the bed, and rubbed a weary hand across his face. “But I am not the man you once knew. The lad who stood at the altar is gone.”
I swallowed hard, but kept a neutral expression and placed the last pin on the table.
“Perhaps he’s changed.” Grabbing a small bakelite comb that was sitting in a drawer, I walked decidedly towards him. “But he’s still my husband.”
I climbed into bed, sat on my knees behind him, and proceeded to detangle his curls, running my fingers through the auburn mane.
“Sassenach, dinna—…”
He shifted to the side, trying to catch my wrist.
“If we aren’t going to sleep, I might as well do something about this mess,” I said dryly. I placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him lightly against me. “Your hair looks like a haystack. Let me.”
He gave a small grunt of amusement but didn’t protest, and rested his back against my stomach. The skin of his nape was warm under my fingers, and very soft. Just above the first vertebra, a small scar formed a white crescent above the tan line of his collar. I worked in silence, pulling lightly with the comb, gently massaging his scalp as I went, and he let out a deep sigh, his shoulders gradually slackening.
“I meant what I said, you know.” My voice sounded hoarse, but I kept it as steady as possible. “In my last letter.”
“That part about me being an ungrateful sod?” He closed his eyes with a snort. “Aye. I told ye, yer wee socks were nicely made, but the colours...”
“No,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Well, you are an ungrateful sod, but there was another letter after that.”
“Ah... I’m sorry, Sassenach. I didna get it.” He shook his head and closed his eyes, looking tired. “Ye ken we were moving all the time, the couriers couldn’t keep track. Was is it that ye meant to tell me, then?” He twisted his neck, suddenly looking concerned. “Something important?”
“Yes and no.” I blushed, picking a bit of hay out of his hair. “Nothing alarming, if that’s what you were thinking. I...” I paused, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “I must have a draft somewhere; I wrote it when I was out. Hold on.”
I went to the main bedroom, and came back with a small leather-bound notebook, flipping through the pages impatiently.
“Yes... here.” I pointed to the page and made to hand him the notebook, but he shook his head and didn’t reach for it.
“I’d like ye to read it,” he said, eyes intent on me—then, seeing my face, he added: “If ye dinna mind, Sassenach. I always heard yer voice when I read yer letters, but... it wasna the same.”
“Oh.” After a moment’s hesitation, I sat next to him on the bed. “Alright, then.”
A little flushed, I started to read.
“Jamie…” Clearing my throat, I brushed a lock of hair from my face. “Since you mentioned it, I came to the hill behind the broch, and I am now sitting under an oak tree—you know the one.”
A low chuckle interrupted me.
“Aye, I do, Sassenach.”
Feigning not to hear but smiling nonetheless, I didn’t look up.
“It has been two weeks without a word from you, and you know patience isn’t one of my virtues. Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I thought I’d write again… but to say what? There are very few things I can tell you without sounding like a fool.”
Perhaps reading this letter was a terrible idea after all, I thought.
"Maybe things like: 'I miss you'. 'I need you'. And 'I'm scared'. No, not scared—bloody terrified. Helpless. Alone.” I shivered, suddenly feeling cold. “This morning, Mary McNab received one of those damned telegrams from the War Office, and you know how I felt when I first heard? Before grief, before anything else, I had this awful sense of... relief. Relief that it wasn’t you, and guilt that I was relieved.”
Jamie’s hand came to rest on the small of my back, and I felt tears prickle my eyelids.
“So I came to the hill, I read your letters for the hundredth time, and I remembered your promise." The words felt thick and heavy in my throat. I sniffled, unable to hold in the sob I’d thought had dried out earlier. “Come back to me, James Fraser. I know you’re a man of your word—and a stubborn one at that. Come back. There’s too much we haven’t said, too much we haven’t done... Don’t make me follow you and drag you back by your thick red curls. You won't like it one bit.”
Unable to finish, I closed the notebook, brushing the tears on my cheeks with the back of my hand. I felt Jamie’s arms circle my shoulders, and he gathered me against him, his four-fingered hand resting on my thigh.
“Well...” Jamie’s voice was husky, and I tasted salty wetness in his neck. “Ye’re a hard one to get rid of, I’ll give ye that, Sassenach.”
And with that, I completely dissolved into hysterical laughter—that quickly turned to uncontrollable sobbing. We held on to each other, sitting on the narrow mattress, letting our tears fall freely in the silence of the night, until our eyes were dry and our throats burned.
After a while, the clock chimed 4 o’clock, and I felt Jamie shift against me. I felt exhausted, but at peace.
“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered, voice muffled against his shoulder. “If you dream, I promise I won’t wake you.”
He paused for a minute, and bent to kiss my head.
“Aye.”
Swooping me up into his arms, he carried me to the other end of the corridor, stepped across the threshold into the glowing brightness of our bedroom, and closed the door behind us.