#book: echo

[incorrect-outlander-quotes]

Claire: Gotta love knitting needles! I can make a scarf, I can make a hat, I can stab someone’s eyes out, I can make mittens...

Jamie: What was that middle part?

Claire: I can make a hat.

[otheroutlandertales]

Anonymous said: Roger is lost. Literally.

Lost and Found - Part 1

by @theministerskat

Roger sensed the irritation radiating from Brianna in the passenger seat. He felt it permeating his own demeanor and gripped the steering wheel tighter. She hadn’t said a word to him since they passed the small rural gas station an hour before, though every few miles a small sigh would pass over her lips.

She had protested only slightly when he had pulled off the 85 in Sailsbury. Tired of the mundane scenery of the highway, he had announced that his directional instincts would get them where they meant to go via backroads. Head southwest, into the mountains, he had thought to himself, simple enough. Many travelers had found their way without modern maps, he himself had done it and still could. But now his current predicament was turning into a bad man-versus-map joke.

He pulled his eyes away from the road before him and looked down, noticing his knuckles had turned white from his firm grip on the wheel. With a sigh that matched one of his wife’s, Roger loosened his hold and glanced at the rearview mirror. Jem and Mandy were fast asleep, her head on his shoulder, their contrasting curls mixing together. The sight sent a small pang of loss through his heart. He recalled the way Jamie and Claire’s hair would weave together as they sat on the porch step of the big house, her head on his shoulder in the same way as their grandchildren were now, completely at peace.

It was no surprise to him that his mind would wander back to memories of his in-laws. To be here again, in North Carolina, driving - not riding - through the same mountains he had called home for so long and where he had found the true meaning of family. And whenever he thought of that time the hole within him seemed to grow a bit more.

Bree had objected to the idea of visiting Fraser’s Ridge when he had first proposed it. She thought it was too soon - too soon to know if anything, or nothing, of their old life had survived the test of time. Roger knew there was more to her objections, though she never voiced them. The thought of the Ridge, and how it was when they had left, was still clear in both their minds. The possibility of seeing that same mountain wilderness with no evidence of the life they once lived would be like severing the last thread in an already fraying rope.

He snuck a sideways look at her. Arms crossed over her chest, and he could have sworn her hair was a shade darker, reflecting the inner frustration he was sure she was feeling with him.

Sending a small prayer up for the salvation of his soul, he finally decided to breach the matter.

“Just say it, aye?”

She pulled her gaze from the blurred view of the passenger side window and settled it on him.

“Say what?” He didn’t hear the anger in her tone he had prepared himself for, but Brianna was like her father in that way, she could easily suppress her true feelings.

“I know ye’re upset. Ye have been since I pulled off the highway. I’ve traveled these mountains when there were no roads or directionals, I thought I’d have no trouble finding it.”

“Oh …” Her response tapered off and he felt her staring at him.

“Oh?” Roger’s own frustration piqued, not wanting to drag on the tension, but to get it all out. His foot went to the brake pedal and he pulled the car over onto the side of the road. He shifted into park and turned to look at her full on.

He was taken aback by what he saw in her face then. It was a soft expression, not frustration like he had expected. A look of contemplation mixed with remorse, one that he had seen when a fleeting memory would overtake her and she talked with Jem about his grandparents.

“Are ye not upset because I seem to have gotten us lost in these God-forsaken mountains?”

“Lost?” Her face was blank for an instant and then she laughed. He knew she was amused at his expense, but the way her face lightened and the feeling of her frustration lifting assuaged his own.

Brianna undid her seatbelt then and scooted herself across the bench seat. He felt himself calm completely as she took his face in her hands, fingertips brushing the several days worth of stubble on his cheeks, and kissed him. It wasn’t a long kiss, and he felt her smile against his own lips as she pulled away.

“Roger, you- we aren’t lost. We’re here.” She gestured out the windshield as if there were a “Welcome to the Ridge” sign before them.

“This is Mount Helicon. We passed a historical marker a few miles back. I think the road is following the old path that came up from the stream. Just a bit further and it should flatten out.” Her voice held a sense of longing as she continued, “That’ll be where the big house would have been … and our cabin.”

He peered out the windows then, squinting through the glare of the sun shining through. The trees had thinned out along this stretch of road and he was finally able to take in their surroundings.

For a moment he was back in the 18th century, looking out over the familiar curves and slopes of the mountains across the valley from their home on the Ridge. This had been one of Jamie’s favorite spots, or as close to it as he could get now. Roger longed to jump out of the car, close his eyes, breathe in the scents of pine and fallen leaves, and pretend he was standing there with Jamie like he had a hundred times. He reigned in his own desire and turned back to Bree, knowing she needed his comfort more than he needed to try and escape his current time.

“I’m sorry, I was so focused on finding or seeing something definitive I didn’t realize.” He knew he had been a fool for misreading her emotions over the last hour, but still felt as though something was wrong. “Are ye upset that we’re here though? That I made us come?”

“No, not upset in the way you’re thinking. It’s just …” She let out a long breath and made to move back across the front seat then. He caught her hand in his before she could slide away in an act of support, willing her to continue.

“What is it, hen?” he pressed.

“I know it’s unlikely we’d come upon it, but I don’t know if I’d be able to stand it, possibly seeing the old burying ground. And finding them there.” She didn’t falter while speaking the words, but he could tell it was difficult for her to finally admit why she hadn’t been keen to come out all this way.

Roger closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He hadn’t thought about it, the fact that in finding Fraser’s Ridge again that they may also find Jamie and Claire’s final resting spot. He’d been so focused on just seeing it, wanting to see firsthand how the decades changed a place, to connect his past life with the one he was living now, that he hadn’t considered the darker possibilities that may arise with their expedition.

“We don’t have to go looking for them. They aren’t lost to us, Bree.”

“I know. But I remember what it was like for Mama seeing that headstone in the kirkyard of St. Kilda’s all those years ago. She was completely devastated before she knew the whole story, and I would rather not know unless we know it all.”

He knew exactly what she meant. He would never shake the image of Claire bent over the grave marker bearing hers and Jamie’s names, nor the feeling of relief when he found Frank Randall’s letter to the Reverend.

“Do ye want to turn around?” He was willing to give up his own need for closure and not look back for her sake. But she shook her head at his question.

“No, I’d like to see it, or at least where it was, and for Mandy to see it too.”

“Aye, me too. Just a little further up then?” he asked. Brianna nodded and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as he shifted the car into drive and pulled back onto the road.

[picturethefrasers]

Love, love, love your fan art! In addition to the beautiful work you've already done, I'd love to see a portrayal of William Ransom! Maybe the scene from an Echo in the Bone where he realizes Jamie is his father and that he's been lied to..?

Thank you so much for this prompt, dear Anon! I am a huge fan of William in the books, who I find to be so very much like Jamie as a young man - impetuous, reckless and stubborn are the qualities which come to mind! But he is also a product of his upbringing, and the scene in Echo which you describe is HUGE in terms of William’s character development. He is very literally confronted with the truth of his history, and there is no escape or denial possible. 

I can only hope I’ve done it justice - mod Fiona

And here are some close ups :

[otheroutlandertales]

Anonymous said: How did Jenny decide to leave Lallybroch once Ian died? 

“And ye’d leave Ian?” he [Jamie] asked.

She made a small noise in her throat. Her hand lay against her breast still, and at this she pressed it flat, fierce against her heart.

“Ian’s with me,” she said, and her back straightened in defiance of the fresh-dug grave. “He’ll never leave me, nor I him.”

- An Echo in the Bone, Chapter 84, “The Right of It”

Canon compliant, a missing moment from Echo (Jenny/Ian).

Other Ocean

by @ianmuyrray

Lallybroch, 1777

Ian was not what he once was.

He lay on his back, the bedclothes tangled around his waist. He slept naked - he always had, no matter the weather. Early on in their marriage, she had laughed at him for it, not seeing what a familiar comfort his body would become to her, how often she would turn to him on cold nights, how he would always sigh and open his arms to her without waking. She knew if she leaned over him she’d see the peg he used to get around leaning against the sideboard, resting within easy reach, awaiting daybreak.

He had always been lean and wiry, but now - she ran delicate fingertips over his protruding ribs, the crests and valleys on his chest - it was different. Imprisonment and English interrogation had left their mark on him, leeched much of him away over the years. Jenny withdrew her hand and studied him, his body bathed in orange and blue, firelight fighting the depth of moonlight. The dimness of light must be accentuating the weight he’d lost, she reasoned, trying to hold her grief at bay. Then the lines of his body blurred, the gaps and sharpness filling and softening with how she’d known him, like a blacksmith pouring molten metal into a mold.

Here in bed, with the farm asleep, things were simple. No need to put up a brave front for their children or grandchildren. Here, they wept, raged, laughed, made love, or sat in silence. Death and its separation - no matter how temporary - eked ever closer, but the walls of their bedroom, and the four posts of their bed, insulated them from its violence and pain.

It was a quiet night, a chilly night, and with the whistle of wind against a window, Jenny shuddered.

“Dinna look at me like that, Jenny,” he said, his voice oddly alert for a man woken from sleep, “I’m no’ dead yet.”

She planted an open palm against his chest, feeling for the beat of his heart, the fullness of air in his lungs with the precious draw of breath. “I know,” she whispered, and met his eye.

There was a stillness in the air, like the crest of a yawn before it falls. Days had been sliding by, turning into months, years, and Ian’s persistent cough never waned. It wasted him, sapped his strength until he was reduced to sitting in armchairs under knitted blankets, watching farmwork from inside. It was his worst nightmare, to be trapped, to feel useless.

Jenny’s hand drifted down to Ian’s right leg, feeling the half limb for the wholeness that it was; his missing limb, a reminder of loss and ache, but also recovery and adaptation. She gave an involuntary squeeze to his upper thigh and closed her eyes. Hot tears welled over onto her cheeks.

“Mo chridhe,” came Ian’s whisper, and she felt the bed shift as he sat up and gathered her to him. She leaned into his body, her arms holding him tight against her. He was frail, but he would not break. His chest was lightly dusted with hair and she nuzzled her nose and cheek into it, taking comfort in its familiarity. He stroked her hair and she wept.

At Ian’s touch, her fears and pain dimmed to the accustomed numbness, snuffing out like the end of a candle’s wick. There was an ugly irony in his soothing of her tears; she shut her eyes firm against it. With one last squeeze, she released him, sitting up and wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands. She sniffed.

“I’ve written to Jamie,” she muttered, struggling to gather her loosened reins. Suspended in the air was the unspoken, palpable absence of their youngest son, their missing piece, living across the ocean with him.

Ian breathed out a sigh, deeper than she had heard in a long time. “Thank ye.”

“Ye should ken I’m no’ afraid,” she stated, her gaze unwavering.

“I ken.” He was quiet a moment, his face momentarily obscured by darkness. “Ye should ken I’m no’ afraid, either.”

She nodded. “I ken.”

Suddenly, he was overcome with a rattling sound, and he erupted into a violent coughing fit. Jenny scrambled for a clean, scented handkerchief, holding it up to his nose and mouth. Coughs were supposed to clear cobwebs in the chest; his, instead, reopened wounds. She held him til it was done, her body stiff, unwilling to let him see how much the sound and sight of blood unsettled her, frightened her. Because - she was afraid. The very marrow of her bones shook with fear of the loss of Ian; she felt to her very essence the gaping maw of absence and sorrow.

He settled back into the bed and opened his arms to her. Crawling into them, feeling childlike, she nestled into his body, taking stock of how it felt different, how it was the same.

With a sweep of her hands across his torso, she could sense his life fading away.

Ian was dying.

“What will ye do when I am gone, Janet?” he asked.

“What do ye mean?” she asked carefully, buying time. Precious time.

“What’s next? Ye must ha’ thought about it.”  

At her silence, after a pop of a log in the fire, he turned into her, his legs tangling with hers, her nightshift rucking up at the movement. A way he had thoughtlessly held her for years.  

“Jenny.” He brought her face up to his. “Ye’ll leave me to wonder?”

“No,” she said. “Only, I havena given it much thought, beyond how things will change. If I try to plan, I dinna get far along in it.”

He smiled sadly as she saw his pulse skitter in his throat. He was afraid, too.

“I’m no’ afraid,” she repeated, as if saying it again would make it true. “I’m only… sad.” A short word, a three letter word, not enough to express what she meant. She pressed a hand over his heart.

“I’m sad, too, mo nighean.” He placed a hand over hers, large and knobbed at the knuckles, his fingers long and white. “I willna see the day when yer hair goes all white. Yer mam and da both gone afore that time. Makes it hard to picture in my mind.” His other hand swept through the strands at her temple.

She took a deep shuddering breath. “I dinna want to live that long beyond ye. Dinna ask that of me.”

“Oh, but I do. Promise me, mo chridhe. That ye willna sit and wait for death. That ye willna wish it will hasten itself just to be with me. You are my heart; as long as you live, I live.”

Her eyes burned and her voice cracked on her next question. “And if it were me instead? What would ye do?”

He wheezed with an impending cough, his bone-sharp frame shaking with the effort to suppress it. Her hand still on his heart, her fingers tightened their grip as his hand did the same, pressing her to him. He would not cough, not now - holding his wife was more important.

Then, a confession spilled from Jenny. “Ian,” she whispered, barely audible.“I dinna think I can bear our home without ye in it. To be in the kitchen and no’ have you to make parritch for, to milk the goats and no’ hear you talking to the horses in the barn, to walk the fields I've kent my whole life and no' catch sight of yer gait coming down the road to me. I canna stand the idea of counting the headstones: Willie and Ma and Rabbie, Da, Caitlin and -- yours.” She took a deep breath, the movements of her body swift, smooth; uninhibited like the roll of water. “I want to leave Lallybroch.”

“Oh, mo graidh,” he nearly wept. “Yes. Go.” He kissed her eyelids. “Tell me. Where would ye go?”

She swallowed, and it was a moment before she spoke, feeling the ground quake beneath her, standing on the verge of breaking. “Maybe France, with Michael. Or-- Jamie. Maybe Jamie would take me in America.”

“America?” Ian repeated, faint surprise folding itself into a resigned happiness. He reached up to gently hold her face in his hands.

Jenny felt the approaching abyss, as deep and wide as the ocean between Lallybroch and the New World. “This willna be home anymore.”

“Aye,” he agreed, his voice barely more than a whisper. He was still holding her face, tangled together in their bed.

“But, mo graidh,” she breathed. “Without ye, I should never ken a home again.”

He took a shaky breath that had nothing to do with his illness, his eyes shining in the dark. The pads of his fingers drifted over her cheekbones, her lips. Memorizing.

He moved towards her and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. “Mo nighean dubh,” he murmured. “If ye think death or oceans will stop me from being with ye, you are a fool.” He touched her chest, above her heart. “I will be with ye always.”

[incorrect-outlander-quotes]

Ian: Did I just scream like a woman?

Fergus: Don't flatter yourself. You scream like a girl.

[incorrect-outlander-quotes]

William: [sarcastically] Well, you’re obviously a better man than I am.

Ian: Don’t beat yourself up. You got plenty of company.