Can you please add to the come Hell or Helwater story? I would be eternally grateful. Also do you post any where but here? Like A03 or something?
Come Hell or Helwater - Part Nineteen
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen, Part Seventeen, Part Eighteen
And here’s where you can find it on AO3.
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Something was going on. Brianna wasn’t sure what, but there was something strange going on between her mother and Jamie. Whatever it was, they didn’t want her to know about it. Every time she walked into the room, they turned all their attention on her. It was overwhelming and she didn’t like it. She’d rather they told her what was going on. If it didn’t stop soon, if they didn’t say something… she would.
Isobel and Lord and Lady Dunsany had returned a few days after her mother. Brianna’s lessons with Isobel had resumed but neither of them were as interested as they had been. Isobel was excited about her sister’s condition and would be going back and forth between the two houses a great deal in the coming months.
“It’s a comfort to her to have me there,” Isobel explained as she struggled to show Brianna how to do decorative needlework. She was embroidering a cap for her sister’s baby.
Brianna was supposed to be putting a monogram onto a handkerchief for her father, but she couldn’t tell Isobel that the initials were wrong. She just worked quietly on the A and M, figuring someday she could add a J to the beginning and an I and E at the end. It wouldn’t be centered properly in the corner but at least it would properly be his.
“It’s important that she rest and not be upset by anything – it’s bad for the baby,” Isobel explained.
“And when you’re not there, is she upset?” Brianna asked.
“It isn’t polite to gossip about such things,” Isobel replied, more with resignation than an aim to scold Brianna for her question. “But she is certainly more inclined to find things upsetting when there’s no one around who can help her with running the household.”
“And you miss your sister too, I suppose.”
“Of course. We were close when we were younger. Our brother was older and we both looked up to him – Geneva especially. I… I remember his death more than him, really. It brought us closer, I suppose,” Isobel confessed.
“What’s it like?” Brianna asked, suddenly curious. “Having a sister?”
Isobel’s eyes widened with surprise but then she folded her hands into her lap, needle and thread carefully held between the forefinger and thumb of her right hand, the delicate, unfinished cap clutched in her left hand.
“Well… She liked to be in charge when we played, but I didn’t mind. I think she’s always been more fanciful so her games were more enjoyable than anything I ever thought of. There were times when we would quarrel, but I don’t know as I’ve heard of any siblings who don’t disagree from time to time,” Isobel confided with a warm smile. “It was harder for her, being older, I think. She had to do everything first when it came to being about in society when we visited London. She’s also prettier so more has been expected of her in other ways. Her marriage has been a successful one… in some ways more than others. I do think we enjoy one another’s company better now and I am excited to become an aunt,” Isobel said with a grin, her attention returning to the baby’s cap in her hands.
Brianna gave her a polite smile, pondering the relationship Isobel described.
She’d had some friends in Boston, but no one she was particularly close to. Even if she had wanted to have friends over to her house, many of their parents weren’t keen to let their daughters visit the Randall household. Despite the fact that Frank was a respectable professor, Claire not only worked, she had a man’s profession. They didn’t want their children getting ideas. Of course, it could only do Brianna good to see the example set in their own households, so she was always welcome there (but once her mother discovered what was behind their hospitality, she preferred to have Brianna either join Frank at the university or do her homework in her own office at the hospital).
Some of those sort-of friends had siblings, though. Angela’s older sister sometimes let them play with her makeup but she also yelled at them when they accidentally spilled her favorite nail polish on her desk. Barbara’s older brother mostly just ignored them whenever Brianna happened to see him and Barbara didn’t seem to mind too much. Doris had a younger sister who had just been starting school and she complained about how all her old things were being passed down – things Barbara still considered hers.
They’d stayed at Lallybroch for a few days before setting out for Helwater. It hadn’t been much time for Brianna to get to know her cousins (and it had been a little overwhelming because there were so many of them), but maybe she would come to see them like siblings… if they ever got back to Lallybroch.
“And what about you?” Isobel asked Brianna gently. “Do you think you would find the prospect of a younger brother or sister exciting?”
Brianna looked up at Isobel, confused. How had the older girl guessed what she’d been thinking about?
“I… guess,” Brianna replied. “I know I wanted one when I was littler but after a while of wanting one and not getting one, I guess I stopped hoping for one.”
“Mmmhmm…” Isobel nodded, her eyes darting back and forth from her needlework to Brianna, something playful in her gaze and at the edges of her mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing. I suppose… I wished for a younger sister sometimes when Geneva was being unkind to me. I told myself I would only treat my younger sister with kindness. While I may not have gotten a younger sister in the way I’d hoped, the girl I imagined she would be was a lot like you – in behavior more than appearance,” she added with a quiet laugh.
“That’s kind of you to say,” Brianna responded flatly, still confused by Isobel’s behavior. She looked to the clock on the mantel. It was a little earlier than they usually quit for the day but Brianna had had enough of Isobel’s riddles. “I should go back and help Mama,” she said, carefully putting her work away. “She hasn’t been feeling well lately.”
“I heard,” Isobel said, laying her own work aside and rising to follow Brianna to the door. “Send her my best wishes that she’ll soon feel better. Encourage her to rest and take care of her if she’ll let you.”
“I will,” Brianna promised but there was something in the way Isobel said it, in the way that she smiled that left Brianna turning their conversation over and over in her mind as she made her way back to their cottage.
When Brianna arrived, her mother was standing at her work table but she wasn’t working. She had one hand braced on the table, the other at the small of her back rubbing circles into it.
“Are you okay, Mama?” Brianna asked, closing the door quietly behind her.
“I thought you were supposed to be having your sewing lesson with Lady Isobel,” Claire remarked, straightening at the table and reaching for some dried herbs to add to her mortar for grinding.
“I told her I needed to come back early to help you,” she said, moving to a spot on the other side of the table.
“Very well. Here,” Claire slid the mortar across to Brianna and then handed her the pestle. “Grind those and then add them–”
“I know, Mama. I’ve helped you make this balm before,” Brianna assured her with an annoyed laugh.
Claire laughed quietly, moving to prepare the beeswax for melting. She paused at the end of the table, leaning into it again and running a hand over herself, first down her front and then to that spot at the small of her back for a moment. With a small nod to herself, she resumed her task.
Brianna had noticed and again asked, “Are you okay, Mama?” Seeing her mother sigh, seeing her prepare to lie or only tell half the truth, Brianna set the pestle aside with more force than she intended, and asked with more force, “Are you sick? Is that why you and Da have been acting strange?”
“I’m not sick, sweetheart,” Claire assured her. “I’m… I’m going to have a baby. I wasn’t sure for a while and there’s still a lot that can go wrong,” she babbled, “but no, I’m not sick.”
“Oh,” Brianna said, picking the pestle back up and grinding the herbs, simply for something to do with her hands. “Are you… happy about it?”
Claire looked at Brianna for a moment, a smile slowly breaking across her face. “I am. But I’m also terrified. The last time I did this was a looooong time ago.”
Brianna laughed. “I’m not that old.”
“No, but you’re not my little baby anymore either,” Claire lamented.
“You’re still scared even though this time you have me and Da?”
“Last time… I didn’t have much left to lose if things went wrong,” Claire answered, quietly. “This time…”
“You’ll be fine, Mama. Da and I will make sure of it,” Brianna promised.
“That’s exactly what your father keeps saying.”
“Two against one,” Brianna said with a shrug. “You should listen to us.”
Claire chuckled. “I suppose I should.”
“Can I tell Lady Isobel? She’s making a cap for Lady Geneva’s baby. Maybe she can show me how to make one for this baby.”
“That would be nice… And what about you? I know it’s a surprise but, are you happy about it? You won’t be close enough in age to be playmates…”
“I don’t know. It’s strange to think of having a baby here,” she remarked, looking around their small cottage. “But I guess it’s kind of like everything else. It’s strange at first, but then you get used to it and have a hard time imagining any other way. I still miss… I was gonna say ‘home’ but this is home now. Where we were before feels more and more like a dream.”
“Hmmm. It does. Not a bad dream or a good dream… just a little… not real.”
“But I always have you to help me remember it,” Brianna said.
“And I have you,” Claire agreed. “And that is something that will always be just ours.”
Brianna smiled, liking the thought of having something that she alone shared with her mother.
