Chapter Text
1955 – Brianna, age 7
Brianna woke up to the sensation of her mother’s gentle hand rubbing soothing circles on her back. As she came to, she realized that she felt even worse now than she did the day before.
“Bree, how do you feel today, lovey?” Claire asked with a scratchy voice.
“Not good,” the small red-headed girl wheezed out before she started coughing in a fit.
“Here, sit up, baby, it’ll help,” Claire said, lifting her nightgown-clad daughter into a sitting position in her bed.
Claire let Brianna catch her breath and gave her a sip of water before announcing that they both would be staying home today.
“Another day off school for the both of us, missy, and this time I’ll be feeling as crummy as you,” she said, booping Brianna on the tip of her nose, pink from the hundreds of tissues it's been subjected to over the past 24 hours.
“You’re sick too, Mummy?” Brianna asked, looking sadly at her mother.
“Yes, I probably caught it from you yesterday when I was looking after you, but it’s not your fault, sweetheart, that’s just the nature of viruses,” Claire explained. “Shall we move downstairs and see if you’re feeling up for some tea and toast?”
“Yes!” the little girl exclaimed, never one to turn down her mother’s toast with butter and jam when she felt under the weather.
After getting Brianna all snuggled up on the living room couch with her beloved stuffed bunny and the Mickey Mouse Club on the telly, Claire gathered her thermometer while waiting for the tea kettle to come to a boil.
She placed the back of her hand to Brianna’s forehead and could tell without a doubt that her fever had yet to break, but she still needed to track the precise temperature.
“Still quite feverish,” she determined, tracing the red line up to the 101.2℉ mark after removing the small stick from her daughter’s armpit.
The tea kettle began to whistle as Claire cleaned and put away the thermometer and just a few minutes later, she returned to the couch to serve the special meal reserved for sick days.
“Have I ever told you that this is what my mother would feed me when I wasn’t feeling well?” Claire asked, sipping her English Breakfast tea.
“I don’t think so,” Brianna mumbled with a mouthful of toast.
Claire laughed at how it took only one big bite of toast for the lower half of her daughter’s face to be covered in the stickiness of butter, jelly, and crumbs.
“She would put a spoonful of honey in the tea to help with a sore throat,” Claire went on, brushing Brianna’s red locks out of her face, reminiscing about one of the few memories she had of her mother.
“It’s one of my favorites,” Brianna said happily, sipping the last of her tea and swaying back and forth to the Mickey Mouse Club song coming from the telly.
Claire cleaned up around her daughter and finally settled next to her on the couch when a shiver ran through her entire body. Her silk pajama set was not sufficient enough to keep her warm.
“Ooh, I just got quite chilly. Are you feeling hot or cold right now, love?” she asked Brianna.
“I feel cold too– ah…ah…CHOO,” she sneezed, aiming directly at Claire, who suddenly wondered why she was even a little bit surprised when she woke up sick this morning. Ah, the joys of motherhood , she thought to herself as she distributed tissues to herself and her germy wee girl.
After she tucked a fleece blanket around Brianna, who instantly cocooned herself in it and rested her head against the pillow on the arm of the couch, Claire finally allowed herself to fully relax as well.
As if on command, once he spotted his two humans settled on the couch, Smoky, the family Newfoundland, moseyed over and curled up at their feet. Claire smiled at their loyal companion who seemed to always know when they needed his comfort.
She covered herself in her own blanket and felt her body sink back into the couch, head extended back against the plush fabric so she could ease the muscles of her neck without having to hold up her head.
The exhaustion that accompanies illness began to overtake her body, but before she succumbed to sleep, she turned her head to face Brianna. She watched the slow rise and fall of her chest with each breath, the steady rhythm lulling Claire further towards slumber.
She glanced up to Brianna’s face and found that her eyes were closed, her small body tired from fighting off the infection as well. Claire smoothed back her daughter’s hair and stroked her cheek with her thumb, eliciting a small smile from the young girl.
“God, you are so like him,” Claire whispered, sending a silent prayer to Jamie.
Not yet fully asleep, Brianna wondered, like who ?
She had no idea how long she had been asleep for, but Brianna began to rouse when she heard small noises nearby. She slowly blinked her eyes open and tried to tell where the sounds were coming from.
It didn’t take long for her to realize that her mother was the source of the… was she crying? Brianna pushed herself upright and scooched closer to her mother to investigate.
Her eyes were closed and it looked like she was sleeping too. There weren’t any tears on her cheeks, but she was whimpering.
“Mummy?” Brianna whispered, not wanting to startle her.
More mewling sounded from Claire, a bit louder this time, but then Brianna heard her speak a word – or rather, a name.
“Jamie,” Claire mumbled in her sleep. “Jamie…”
Brianna wondered who Jamie was, she didn’t think she knew anyone by that name. She was pulled from her thoughts, however, when her mother’s breathing became deeper and quicker and her face contorted into one of fear. She thought that her mother must be having a nightmare.
I could only open my eyes enough for a sliver of light to shine through. They weren’t adjusted to the intense brightness that came through the stained glass windows surrounding me and they had been closed for so long that a thin layer of crust bound my lids together. After many minutes of slowly forcing them further and further apart, I stared directly above at the long, intricate wooden beams on the ceiling of l’hôpital des Anges.
As I gained awareness of myself and my surroundings, the pain that had been kept at bay by my hemorrhage-induced loss of consciousness came rushing to the surface. My entire body ached from head to toe and I could feel the dampness of sweat on my forehead, the back of my neck, the hollow of my chest, and anywhere my skin met my shift.
I wanted to sit up and I willed my arms to move so I might do so. When my brain registered feeling in my hands once more, I found that they were resting on my abdomen. I instinctively felt that something was terribly wrong. My baby was no longer inside of me… where was my baby?
I tried to call for help. My mouth opened but no words came out. Again and again I attempted to yell for Mother Hildegarde or Sister Angelique, but to no avail. I could only move my head and my extremities as I was too weak for anything more. I mustered all the energy I could to turn my head towards the center of l’hôpital to see who could help me, and to my horror there was no one. I was completely alone and my baby was nowhere to be found.
The panic I had been managing to keep just beneath the surface surged through to my exterior. I started sobbing and had a hard time catching my breath. Between gasps I screamed for the only person who could possibly save me from this torture.
“No… Jamie… help,” Claire muttered subconsciously.
Brianna couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother look scared and it frightened her to see her this way.
“Mummy… wake up,” Brianna said, louder this time.
Still there was no acknowledgement that Claire heard daughter and she continued to shift in her spot on the couch, murmuring unintelligibly.
Brianna started to feel desperate to get her mother out of the nightmare and resorted to pushing on her shoulder with her little hands.
“Mummy, please wake up!” she said, nudging Claire.
All of a sudden the world spun out of control around me. Flashes of color rapidly whirled by and I felt the dizzying affects as if I had been the one twisting wildly about. The motion gradually slowed down and eventually came to a complete stop.
When I regained my wits I found myself once again flat on my back and laying on a bed. While I lacked all symptoms of illness I had just been experiencing, I realized that I was still unable to move. I gazed up and saw a blue velvet canopy above the bed. Unfamiliar with its appearance, I tried to look around the room to get my bearings.
I could do no more than lift my head and all that I saw was blurry. I could make out large paintings on the walls and a chaise lounge in the middle of the floor; everything was gilded.
Suddenly there were hands upon me. I could not see the person’s face, but the skirts of my gown were being tossed above my waist. It was then that I registered that I was at the foot of the bed with my legs dangling off the edge. My panic returned in an instant and once again I was calling for Jamie, longing for him to rescue me – but again I was mute.
The pair of hands grasped both my knees and forced my legs apart. I was powerless to stop them. I felt the mystery person step between my thighs and then…
Finally, Claire gasped and sat bolt upright on the couch, placing her hand on her chest as if she could calm her racing heart. She felt the sweat beading on her forehead as she tried to control her breathing and stop herself from continuing to hyperventilate.
She looked around the room, reorienting herself to her surroundings once more, until her sights landed on her daughter’s terrified looking face.
“Mummy? Are you okay?” Brianna questioned hesitantly, peering up at her mother with the same big blue eyes that visited Claire in her reveries.
“Oh, Bree… I must have been having… a bad dream,” Claire said with each exhale. “I’m okay, darling,” she assured her, patting her leg.
“Who is Jamie?” Brianna asked abruptly.
Claire’s head whipped toward her daughter, breath catching instantly and eyes blowing wide open. Her mouth hung slightly agape at the sound of her true love’s name coming from their daughter’s lips.
She stared at her daughter while she processed the question she’d been asked and tried to come to terms with how she could possibly answer it. However, her body’s demand for oxygen overpowered her shock and she released the breath she’d been holding.
“Um… I have no idea. Why do you ask?” Claire grimaced, loathing the fact that she had to lie to her – no, their – daughter like this.
“You kept saying ‘Jamie’ in your bad dream and started crying,” Brianna said, still appearing worried for her mother.
“Huh… well… sometimes people have strange dreams when they’re sick. It must have been the fever talking,” Claire tried to reason. “Did you dream of anything while you were napping?” she asked, in an attempt to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“Yes! There was an elephant! And then…” as Brianna went on about her elaborate dream, Claire’s mind was far away. She was glad she talked her way out of that precarious situation, but her mind couldn’t stop replaying the memory of Brianna’s voice saying “Jamie” over and over.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Claire made sure the appropriate medicines were administered, temperatures were monitored, fluids were maintained, and tissues were supplied. Brianna snuggled into her mother’s side on the couch and Claire watched as her daughter’s blinks grew longer and longer, right on the brink of impending sleep.
She was still quite shaken from the nightmares she had earlier in the day, though you wouldn’t be able to tell given her ability to put on a brave face and carry on. It was a well-practiced technique that she’d perfected over the years since she agreed to Frank’s condition of never talking about the past.
Her dreams – or nightmares – about her previous life had become less and less frequent with time. When she first came back, they were a daily occurrence every time she closed her eyes for a nap or at night. Frank wasn’t pleased when both of their sleeps were interrupted by these visions, but he was sympathetic to the nightmares that clearly traumatized his wife.
With that being said, not all of them were nightmares and while she was less likely to wake up in the night from her pleasant dreams, every so often she would jolt awake with a gasp, flushed from her chest to her cheeks. Frank was not so sympathetic to these dreams.
These days, it was a rare occurrence that she dreamed about anything other than human anatomy and pathology. Balancing wifehood and motherhood with being a full time medical student was no easy task. All of her free time was dedicated to studying, and apparently that included while she slept.
She deduced that these nightmares must have truly been brought on by her illness and fever and therefore were temporary – a small consolation for the terror they caused her. She was about to join Brianna in drifting off to sleep when Frank suddenly walked through the door, takeout in hand.
“Daddy!” Brianna yelled excitedly, throwing the blanket off of them so she could greet him, jolting Claire awake in the process.
“How are my girls feeling?” Frank asked as he bent to kiss Brianna on top of her head.
“A little better,” Brianna reported. “What’d ya bring for dinner?” she asked, trying to peer into the takeaway bag in his grasp.
“I got some chicken soup for you and Mummy, a chicken parmigiana dinner for me, and a loaf of Italian bread for all of us from Moretti’s.” he said, lifting the bag out of Brianna’s reach with a smile as they made their way to the kitchen.
Claire forced herself to get up from the couch, feeling the full effects of illness in her aching joints that went stiff in the hours she spent sedentary. She lumbered towards the kitchen and stopped to lean against the doorframe, watching her daughter follow Frank around like a little duckling and briefing him about all she did today while he was busy setting up dinner.
“Hello,” Claire said with a hoarse voice, making her presence known.
“Hello, darling, are you feeling any better?” Frank wondered as he set three placemats on the kitchen table.
“Not quite. In fact, I think I’m feeling a bit worse if I’m being honest,” she replied, woefully. “I’m going to go wash up quickly before we eat.”
Brianna continued to babble on as Claire went upstairs. Frank was only half-listening to her stories when she uttered something that immediately caught his attention.
“…then Mummy had a bad dream, and then…”
“Did you say Mummy had a bad dream?” Frank interrupted, pausing in his endeavors to give the little girl his full attention.
“Yeah, she looked really scared but I woke her up and then she felt better,” Brianna announced proudly.
“That’s very kind of you, Bree. Did she say what the dream was about?” Frank asked, listening curiously.
“No, she doesn’t remember. She was crying and she kept sayin’ ‘Jamie’, but she doesn’t know who that is,'' Brianna said with a shrug.
Frank felt his heart drop into his stomach at the sound of his name – one he hadn’t heard aloud in the years since they agreed not to talk about him.
“She doesn’t know who that is, hm?” he grimaced, laying down the dinner plates with more force than he intended. She hasn’t had one of those dreams in a while , he thought to himself, irritated.
“Mummy said when you’re sick you can have weird dreams or even nightmares,” Brianna stated matter of factly while they both took their seats at the table.
“Yes, that must be it…” Frank resigned himself to accept that response just as Claire re-entered the kitchen to join them.
She caught his look as she sat down at the table and furrowed her brow at him in confusion. When he continued to glare, eyes locked on hers, Claire felt a pit in her stomach at the likelihood of what Brianna must have revealed.
She’s only ever seen this sickened expression of his when discussing one person: James Fraser.