(set shortly after this story, in the aftermath of 05x12 “Never My Love”)
Fitful sleep would be a generous way to describe how they had passed the night - coiled tightly around each other, sharing breath, sheltered from the storms outside and within.
Jamie peppered her face with tiny, breathless kisses.Â
“Today - you and me,” he breathed into her ear - knee between her thighs, arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders, an anchor in the dark. “Wi’ the door locked and the window open.”
His voice - his touch - electrified her. Hairs on her arms stood on end, breath shallowed, ankles curled around his. “Yes.” Her lips formed the word, but she didn’t bother using her voice. For he knew.
He shifted then, careful of the sticky salve he’d rubbed into the wounds on her breasts, thumb stroking her shoulder. “Do you remember...”Â
She turned her face, butting the end of her nose against his. “Paris,” she whispered. Felt his pulse quicken.
“The day we spent, like this.” He dug his thumbnail into the bone of her hip. “After your ordeal.”
Sumptuous drapes, and gilded plaster on the walls, and a bedroom the size of the Big House. Food left on trays outside the enormous doors.Â
“You know I do.” She kissed the cleft in his chin, rasping her cheeks against his stubble. “You always know how to care for me.”
He pulled back a bit, suddenly serious. “I vowed to care for you and protect you when we wed, Claire.”
Faintly against the starlight pouring through their open window, she could just see the outline of his shoulders - always burdened with so many worries - and the wild tangle of his hair. She sat up, reached to cup his cheek.
“I know, Jamie. You do. You don’t need to tell me. I know.”
“Until the last breath in my body.”
He was coiled tight - with exhaustion, with rage, with fear.
“I’m very glad of it, Jamie. I am.”
Still he seemed unsettled. So gently she pushed him onto his back, there on their mattress. Rose above him, guided by touch. Brought their bodies together. Leaned down to kiss him. Showing him - as he had shown her - what both their hearts knew to be true.
Jamie had placed the bench from her mirror in front of the windowsill, so that she could lean her elbows against it, and watch the sun rise, and smell the rain that had fallen in the night.
It was still early - nobody was out in the dooryard yet, though before too long Missus Bug and Lizzie would make their way to the barn, swinging empty pails for the day’s milk and eggs.
The breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders, and carried the scent of pines to Jamie, sprawled naked in the bed.
He was still, but clearly awake - and he watched her turn around to face him.
“What are you thinking about?”
He stretched and yawned. “Fergus had asked for my help wi’ the roof of his cabin. There’s a leak to fix. I’d send Roger Mac, but - ”
“But what? Send him.”
He pursed his lips, scratching his belly absently. “I suppose. He needs to learn sometime.”
“Dare I say - I think it would be easier for him to learn without you being there to teach him.”
His brow furrowed. “Are you saying that I’m intimidating, Sassenach?”
She smiled, and his heart soared to see it. “Perhaps. Sometimes.”
He opened his arms to her, and she raced into them, dropping Jamie’s plaid from her shoulders to the floor. They held each other, breathing, listening to the birds greet the new day.
“Never wi’ you, I hope?” he whispered.
She kissed the side of his neck. “You protect me - and your family - by all means necessary. I love you all the more for it.”
Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed shut.
She pulled the quilt up and over their heads.
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