Rating: General Audiences
Summary: Jamie and Claire have a conversation while in the thick of World War 1.
A/N: Thank you so much to @enormouseffort for the mood board and to @iamnottrisha & @outlanderlush for putting this together! And thank you to @filledwithlight, @smashing-teacups, @happytoobserve and @fierceweebadger for looking this over for me! Also, it’s midnight east coast time so surprise!!!
When she comes to him, it’s with a bloodied apron still tied around her neck and curls askew. Someone’s blood streaks her upper arm, smeared into a dried out whorl thanks to a hasty wipe. A glance at her and Jamie knows tension lies between her shoulder blades like a lead weight and that the balls of her feet are aching.
He’s no better off than she is, exhausted to the very marrow of his bones. He’d been ready to close his eyes and welcome sleep until she crept in, but now his only thought is of following through on the warm bath he’d conjured for her in his mind. It takes time to fill, but the moment he helps her into the tub and she sighs, he knows he would do it again, even so late at night. Reaching behind her head, his fingers find the material holding her curls at bay and lets it go, sending them chaotically floating free.
“Close yer eyes, a nighean.”
She does as she’s told and becomes malleable under his hands as they meticulously work to rub her feet under the hot water.
“I haven’t sat since five-thirty this morning.” Her words leave her on a weary sigh; the moon and stars have been out for hours now.
“Ye push yourself too hard, Sassenach. If ye dinna do more to take care of yourself, yer body will decide to slow down for ye,” Jamie chides gently, hands working a calf, delighting in her soft groan.
“Who’s the medical professional, here, Captain?” She cracks one eye open to look at him. “I know you only arrived here a few moments before me, and you were gone when I woke.”
He’s quiet as his hands move back to a foot, pressing his thumbs into the arch gently and rubbing outward. When he replies, his eyes flicker toward her face. “Cannae do reconnaissance in the bright, open daylight, Nurse Beauchamp,” he retorts with her own title. “And the day cannae be done only because I was workin’ early.”
“So, you’re saying that telling me how much sleep to get isn’t hypocritical?”
She’s won when he can’t think of a good retort, and she smiles smugly, proud of herself for outsmarting him there.
“It’s no’ a bad thing to take a break when ye can get it, was my point.” He switches feet, focused on his task.
“Hello, pot. I’m kettle,” she teases, though it’s really quite sweet, his worry for her. It endears him even more to her heart, though he’d done well enough the day they’d met two years ago, buying flowers from her at the park for his young niece.
“We both do too much and we ken it, but—”
“—but we have one another to lean on,” she finishes, smiling as he moves to the head of the tub in order to capture her lips in a kiss. One of his large hands cradles her face and she reciprocates, enjoying the feel of his stubble against her fingertips.
“I missed ye today, mo nighean donn,” he murmurs huskily, ducking his head a little further to press his lips to her neck.
“I thought about you earlier while I was debriding a wound,” Claire informs him, even as her head tilts this way and that to grant better access to skin begging to feel the imprint of his lips.
