“I’m going to take this job,” Claire informs Jamie, sitting on her bed, glasses on, laptop in hand. He’s been putting together her most recent purchase, a table she can put her TV and cable box on top of.
“Which one? The clinic job?” he asks her, pausing to drill before glancing back at her.
“No, not that one.”
“The pediatrician’s office?”
“No,” she says, wetting her lips and looking over the email in her inbox. She’s nervous and isn’t sure why; it’s just Jamie, but what she wants to do is such a divergence from the career she’s had—the career she went to school for, went into debt to pursue. The hesitation shows on her face, and she knows it when Jamie puts down his tools and sits beside her, reaching out to tilt her face up by the chin.
“What is it, then?” She has to know, he hopes, that whatever she wants to do, he’ll support. Even if, for a while, what she wants to do is nothing but settle into life in Scotland.
So hard to believe (after this chapter) we only have THREE chapters left in this arc!! Thanks to @notevenjokingfic for beta’ing this story and to everyone who has supported me along the way!
The night was long but somehow felt like it lasted no time at all. There was something otherworldly about it— something holy. For Claire, holding Jamie while he cried— while he sobbed out every fragmented piece of his tattered heart— made her feel unspeakable things. She felt the whispers of it, deep in her chest as his body racked against her. Whispers of devotion that knew no limits, bore no conditions. Of a love so deep she was drowning in it.
Folded against the warmth of Fraser’s leather jacket with her legs on either side of his hips, it was easy for Claire to pretend. That they were not going home (to the Queen’s summer residence), that they were just out for another ride. That the rest of the world just existed as transient wax figures, melting and insignificant. That their world existed solely in the cabin and that it waited for them just around the bend (the bed, the kitchen, the spot for two in front of the fireplace, the shower with the slightly mildewed curtain, the soft planks of the small deck off the rear of the structure).
They were a couple meant not to be seen, not to be heard, but just to exist together as one. Claire indulged the fantasy as she closed her eyes, felt his fingers wind through hers when her grip slackened around his waist.
“Ye alright?” he asked, grip pulsing as he slowed to let another vehicle pass on the narrow road. She turned her hand so they were palm to palm. She pressed the very tip of her index finger to the thin, throbbing skin of his wrist.
“Better than just fine,” she said, attempting to sound strong, reassured, confident (and failing in actually being any of those things).
He lifted her hand, kissed the place where a fortune teller’s thumbs would divine a destiny for her if she were the kind of woman to frequent such a place, and then carefully situated it over his stomach. “No’ much further.”
She closed her eyes, drawing herself to Fraser’s back as tightly as possible. The nearness of home was precisely what she feared most.
Many thanks to everyone who read Part I and shared some love with me. Many thanks to @abreathofsnowandwaffles, @desperationandgin, @kkruml, and @smashing-teacups for giving me assists along the way with my writing process. Your encouragement and love keep me plugging when I doubt myself.
The scene confronting Claire when she rounded the corner had the surrealistic quality of a Salvador Dali painting.
A newly sentient being capable of utter destruction, the ladder appeared to be primed for an opportunity to kill its erstwhile user. Said user, who had moments earlier been perched on the second to the top rung like the hilltop statue of a city’s patron saint, was on the floor with his head bowed. The ladder from which he had fallen was suspended with three of its four legs in the air. The top rung was precariously balanced against a shelf at least four feet above Claire’s head.
“Fell wi’ my hand out,” Jamie explained stoically, lifting his chin and focusing his attention on her.
Through his shirt she made the quick assessment that he had dislocated his shoulder –the carefully-sculpted cap had melted, shifted down. Notwithstanding this unsettling tableau, he appeared to Claire’s trained eye to be remarkably self-possessed in what must have been immense discomfort.
“I landed with all my weight on the hand, and crunch!, there it went.”
“I heard,” Claire responded, using the outside of her foot to push aside the various tools (ones that her brain attempted in vain to identify before concluding they just didn’t have names) before she went to her knees. She swept a piece of stray hair from his forehead, too concerned to feel even the slightest bit awkward about the sentimentality that made her so forward (all paint swatches and her sundry list of supplies had been long forgotten). “Did you hit your head?”
WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A BURRITO! 🌯🌯🌯 Have you ever just stared at your server in Chipotle while they make your burrito and think to yourself, “Wouldn’t life just be so much better if it was me inside that warm flour tortilla?”.
Ok maybe I’m a bit bit crazy but let’s be honest, being wrapped up in a tortilla is hands down the coolest thing you can do in 2019. Move over sliced bread, this tortilla has a bigger purpose.
Website says its vegan/gluten free too…good enough for me! Check them out HERE
Tori