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Just Between Lovers

Ao3 Link (Here)

There's going to be callbacks to earlier chapters (and a reference to the show Coupling that involves the number 3 that I couldn't shake). That's on purpose and not me being a super lazy writer. Although I am very forgetful 😅 Also the way this chapter begins is the way I first imagined this story and what made me want to write it.

And thank you to all you loyal readers and cheerleaders! I couldn't have done this without all of your immense support!

But please forgive for any mistakes and typos too. Google docs double saved some lines and I'm not entirely sure I spotted them all.

//

Chapter Eight

My hands were shaking violently as I struggled to undress, desperate to get into the bath and burn the cold from my flesh and bones and drown out the world around me.

But I was reluctant to bare myself completely for I wasn't entirely alone.

Frank was watching me from the edge of the bathtub with unwavering, almost frightful attention, trying to figure out if I was in my right mind or not through the clouds of steam.

He thought I'd been attacked when I came staggering through the door home, seeing me mad-eyed and drenched to the bone with a red scrape down one side of my cheek and a fat lump above my brow.

He had flown to my side, hands groping all over me without a care for gentleness, demanding what the hell had happened.

My mouth had parted breathlessly as if I'd been slammed mercilessly in the gut before I finally gasped out a terrible sob realizing Frank wasn't some figment of my imagination. That he was as real as me. Which meant everything before had to have been a dream.

Another stupid dream.

"I can handle the rest from here," I assured Frank, crossing my arms awkwardly over my chest, as I shivered down to my toes. "Go on to bed. I'll - I'll be there shortly. "

Frank made a dismissive sound as he gathered my clothes from off the floor, soaked with rainwater that pooled around my bare feet, and tossed them into the hamper.

"I can't leave you alone, not with a bump that big. What if you have a concussion?"

I went to check the water filling up the bathtub, trying to hold myself together and not fall apart in front of him again.

"I don't have a concussion, Frank," I said, despite feeling every symptom cut me raw and to the bone. But I didn't have the strength to worry nor did I care. " I just took a bad fall. My own fault for running without paying attention."

"Claire . . ." Frank came up behind me and laid a hand on my back that had me flinching away.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, and reluctantly turned to face him, unable to explain how his touch now felt like a strangers to me.

How he wasn't the one I was dying inside for.

Frank just shook his head but I could see how much my reaction troubled him by the tightening of his jaw that deepened the prominent lines around his mouth.

"Don't be, Darling. I'm the one pestering you while you're shaking like a leaf. Go on and take a long hot soak while I make you a cup of tea and get something for that poor head of yours too. How does that sound?"

I didn't want anything but I nodded anyway.

"That sounds perfect," I said, giving Frank the most miserable attempt at a smile I could muster and pressed my palm to his smooth cheek.

His face softened ever so slightly at the gesture and he kissed my hand with warm affection before closing the door behind him.

Left alone, I finally broke down and collapsed against the side of the porcelain tub. My stifled cries slashed my throat raw and to the point I could barely breathe, trying to convince myself that he . . . he . . .

My heart stopped dead, lifeless in my chest.

I couldn't remember his name.

Why couldn't I remember his name!

It was there burning the tip of my tongue and I ached to speak it again.

But the harder I tried to remember - tried to summon every detail of his face, the sound of his laugh - his joy - the way he made me feel when his heart spoke to mine - the faster he began to painfully slip away from mind and heart until all I had was a vague impression that there was something I'd forgotten.

Something very precious . . .

//

Days passed by in a blur after that where I drifted from one moment to the next, not taking much notice of anything or anyone unless forced to, as I was overcome with a strange sense of loss and longing that I couldn't make sense of.

Frank spent the rest of his time off watching over me with the patience of a much aggrieved saint, but did so at arms length. Afraid that he'd trigger me to tears or a splitting migraine which I was prone to now ever since that night I blacked out in the rain which only worried him more.

Today, however, I guess he'd had enough.

I was in the kitchen sitting by the window, wondering why my bowl of cereal was giving me a sharp stab of deja vu as I spooned it to glue, when I heard Frank's voice suddenly beside me.

"What were you saying?" I asked, glancing up at him apologetically.

Frank sighed irritably (he must've called my name more than once) and took the seat opposite me.

"I said that I'm taking an extended leave from work. I was already thinking about moving here anyway and I think now is as good a time as any to get things sorted between us before I hand in my notice."

My spoon hit the side of the bowl with a hard clink as I stared at him, completely taken aback.

"You mean to live here? With me?"

"Maybe someplace larger, but yes," he said with some amusement as he pushed the bowl aside to grasp my hands. "I wanted to talk to you about it earlier but then you had that 'fall' of yours -" he eyed me speculatively, but continued on. "So I thought it better to wait. But that's been our problem hasn't it? We've been locked in this ridiculous stalemate waiting for the other to see reason and have only succeeded in driving each other further away. So if I'm the one that has to make the sacrifice and move then so be it. I miss you too much to keep away."

If Frank was meaning to be romantic he was failing.

"A sacrifice?" I repeated , jerking my hands from his. "You say it as if I'm the one who's been the problem."

His eyes narrowed with surprising coldness at me.

"You're the one that moved away, Claire. Not me."

"For an opportunity that you agreed to! You promised that we could make it work but you've barely kept your end of it. I'm the one having to come to you more often than not."

"And I'm keeping my promise now by giving you exactly what you've been wanting," he said with growing frustration.

"And you? What do you want?"

"Isn't that obvious? I'm moving here aren't I?"

"Which you see as a sacrifice!"

Frank groaned and leaned back into his chair, pinching the space between his eyes

"You sound like a child, you know that? Arguing in circles and trying to pick a fight with me. "

"What the hell does that mean?" I demanded.

"You tell me." An angry flush crawled up Frank's throat and darkened his eyes that glared at me. "You walk around here day after day as if your heart's been ripped out from your chest. I don't know if it's because you've lost a patient or - or -"

I didn't justify filling in the accusatory blank for him and pushed myself away from the table.

"I've been like this for months, Frank, and you're only just now bothering to give a damn about me?"

"I could say the same about you," he shot back, and I felt something akin to a roar rip out of me that started a brutal back and forth over who was at fault for bringing misery to our relationship.

Then there was a lull in our shouting and I found myself standing and grasping the kitchen counter for support, exhausted by the very idea of us.

"I think you should go, Frank. Back to Oxfordshire before we hurt each other anymore."

Frank looked at me with genuine alarm and grasped me by the arms. "You don't mean that, Claire."

"I do," I said brokenly, and pushed his hands away. "And I'm sorry but . . ." I swallowed hard. "I can't do this anymore. All this heartbreak . . . it's killing me." It wasn't just him I was referring to. There was something wrong with me that had nothing to do with our relationship. " I just don't have anything left to give you anymore."

"Claire . . ." He reached for me once more, his heart breaking before my eyes. But I took a step back.

"Please, Frank." My throat tightened and my eyes began to burn. "Just go."

After a long moment's pause, Frank reluctantly retreated to the bedroom to gather his things. But before he left, he pressed his hand to my shoulder and murmured something softly against my cheek that he sealed with a kiss goodbye.

Maybe he had said I love you.

I would never know.

All I heard was a loving whisper by my ear that had me in tears.

"It's not a sacrifice to be wi' ye."

//

Frank of course didn't completely abandon me. He wasn't that much of a bastard.

He was always calling me, wanting to know if I was eating and sleeping right, that I wasn't working myself to the bone (as I was prone to do in his opinion), and showering me with more attention now that we were on a break than he ever did when we were together which made me angrier than I was before.

Geilie indulged me the best way she knew how.

By celebrating as if I'd just been released from a twenty year prison sentence.

We spent our days eating delicious trashy food and spending money on worthless trivial things and in-between she was my shoulder to cry on thinking my tears were for Frank. They were, but not entirely. What I truly grieved for still remained a mystery to me though I felt its presence in the painful, gaping hole that had formed in my heart and mind, pleading desperately for me to remember.

I felt my chest throb just thinking about it as Geilie dragged me through the streets of Edinburgh like a mouse hunting for cheese.

"Where are we going now, Geilie?" I asked her for the hundredth time.

"Look ahead," she gestured with a cock of her head to where the last burst of sunlight caught on the lettering of a sign hanging above us.

~ T H E W O R L D' S E N D ~

This was the pub that Frank, Geilie and I had been banned from after they both got nearly every person in the establishment into a glass and bone-breaking brawl.

Frank ended up with a split lip, bruised rib and a puffy nose that I had to stuff with a tampon while Geilie nearly landed herself in jail and had never been more pissed when she was let go with only a stern warning.

"We're not allowed in there, you know that," I said, but my friend tugged me in anyway.

"Aye, but I sweet talked the owner last night. In bed. Would ye believe me if I said he had three fecking . . ."

Once we were seated inside (and while Geilie entertained me about tripods over our free drinks) my eyes wandered around the pub that had been around before the days of Culloden, passing over one face to the next out of simple curiosity until one stranger in particular stole my breath away.

He sat at the other end of the pub, broad-shouldered and straight backed, his face turned from mine, with vibrant red curls that I had only ever seen in the twilight hours of my bed, writhing in my sleep.

"He's a big laddie that one," admired Geilie, following my line of sight. She drummed her fingers against her cheek nestled in her palm. "And redheided too," she winked.

"I don't know what you mean," I lied and took a long drink from the cold pint between my hands.

"Liar, liar, face on fire," Geilie cackled, kicking me teasingly under the table. "But ye're lucky the color suits ye, brings out that queenly gold in yer eyes, cause the laddie buck is coming this way and Christ, is he gorgeous. Definitely packing three big, bonnie -"

I moved to clamp my hand over my friend's giggly, pervy mouth and she nearly fell out of her chair dodging me.

"One of these days, Geilie!" I threatened even as I laughed.

"Aye, aye, to the moon, I ken," Geilie said once she got herself upright and lifted her chin as an offering, laughing along with me until someone cleared their throat.

I turned to a sight that made my heart take a soaring, joyful leap.

The spirited blue of his eyes. The bold lines of his face. That sensitive, tender mouth. All familiar to me somehow!

I think I even knew his -

"Och, I'm sorry for interrupting," said the redheaded stranger looking shy. "But I saw ye there - I mean here. Sitting. And I thought - weel, ye looked just like -"

"Jamie! You're Jamie aren't you?"

I blurted, not knowing how I knew his name but felt like it had been secreted away somewhere inside me for this moment here and now to finally speak.

"You remembered me?" He breathed with awestruck relief and passed a hand through his lovely curls setting them astray.

"I didn't think ye would what wi' the blood and all and it being months ago now and wi' the punching and the kicking and -" He stopped himself from blabbering on with a shrug and bashful grin and for a moment we just stared at each other, lost in the others eyes.

"So ye two ken each other?" Geilie was observing us with keen, curious eyes, glowing with something indistinct that surely must've belonged to that great, great grand witch she descended from.

"Yes - I mean no. I mean -"

Geilie took pity on me and directed her witching eyes on Jamie, his gaze having never wavered from me.

"Why don't ye put yer tongue back in yer mouth foxcub and tell me how ye met my best lass?"

Jamie sweetly blushed right to the tips of his ears peeking out from his thick mane of curls then pulled a chair from another table, hesitating for the slightest moment for permission, before moving it beside mine to tell the tale of how we came to know each other.

//

As it turned out I had met Jamie during the brawl at the pub nearly a year ago.

I had been trying to get to my two idiots trapped in the middle of the rowdy crowd when some drunken sot staggered into me and knocked me down to the sticky floor. Before I could be trampled on however, a pair of strong hands had lifted me up from behind and pulled me away from the fray safely to the back where the exit door led to the alley outside.

"Are ye a'right, lass?" Asked my rescuer, as he gently eased the curls from off my face to see if I were hurt. Just as I was about to answer, I glanced up and gasped at the sight of his face.

Though the light was dim and threatened to go black with every flicker that somehow still attracted a ring of moths above us, I could see that the stranger had already experienced his bloody share of the fight. He had a spectacular knot on his brow the size of a small plum with a gash that cut across it and bruising that reached down to his eye, swollen shut.

"I should be asking you that! What the hell happened?" I of course knew what happened, and carefully held his bloodied face between my two hands. The physician in me already claiming the poor lad mine to care for.

"A bottle of Glenfiddich," he winced, skin hot to the touch, as I traced his injured features with my fingertips, feeling for bumps and breaks, right down to his chest where his shirt was spotted with blood and soaked with whisky. A damn waste of a cute Flaming Lips shirt.

"The wee shiteheid who threw it got it twice as bad though. I think he's still flopping like a guppy on the floor somewhere."

Seeing as he towered over me and was built like goddamn Thor, I bet the unfortunate fellow was halfway on his journey between heaven and hell and could only hope that it hadn't been Frank.

"But dinna fash over me, lass. My heid is harder than a rock -" Which he tapped with his knuckles. " - and this lot is nothing compared to the wee savages I teach," he assured me before glancing warily over his shoulder.

"You're going back in there aren't you?"

He laid a big hand over mine stilled at his chest. "I'm afraid I have to."

I yanked myself from his grasp with a sudden blood thirsty urge to punch this idiot on the nose.

"You're all the same aren't you?! Bloody stupid men always needing to cockoff to a fight!" I shouted, fists clenched, thinking of Frank and his fucking pride.

The lad's one good eye, a beautiful piercing blue, glimmered with humor that sparked a terrible thunder in me somewhere between rage and passion that had me shaking.

"Any other day lass I'd like to argue wi' ye, ye look the type partial to a good bite," he smiled cheekily, making my heart's blood spike. "But I'm going back into that shitehole to get the Englishman before he's torn apart. He's yers isn't he?"

My mouth parted wordlessly as I nodded, embarrassment coloring me ugly.

"And I'm sure ye want him in one piece too if only to kill him yerself, am I right?" I nodded again. "So ye best meet us up front. But if ye dinna see me just holler for Jamie and I'll find ye, Sassenach. I promise ye."

He then reached for me as if to caress my cheek but pulled back with regret plainly etched on his face, apparent even with the swelling. And I strangely felt something much the same as he left me with the warm whisper of his touch and the heady scent of whisky but most alluringly of balsam trees.

//

"And then?" Geilie implored, looking excitedly between Jamie and I, likely imagining some great steamy love affair that I somehow kept from her.

Jamie cast a sympathetic eye towards me knowing it hadn't been anything of the sort, having witnessed the fight that had erupted between Frank and I the second he was delivered to me, and left before I was able to thank him properly.

"I brought back her man like I promised then went to see how my own lads had fared. And seeing as no one needed stitches we helped clean up the place a bit and earned ourselves a free pint after," he answered.

"Aren't ye a boy scout," quipped Geilie, deflated with disappointment. "And you -" she bopped her chin at me." Why didn't ye tell me any of this?"

I shrugged helplessly, having barely remembered much until that moment.

"None of us were at our best that night, you know that especially -" my tongue stumbled on Frank's name and I hurried past it with a shake of my head. "So I tried my best to forget about it all."

And so went my battered faced rescuer who became just another casualty of the night.

Except now I was starting to realize with heart pounding clarity that I hadn't forgotten him at all. That Jamie was the one I had been dreaming about all this time.

And somehow Geilie knew it too.

"Oh, I think ye remembered plenty, lass," she smirked, and gave Jamie a wink. I groaned inwardly and kicked her under the table hoping violence would stop her from opening her big fat mouth.

But who was I kidding?

The woman was the daughter of Lucifer and she kicked me right back.

"I'm missing something aye?" Jamie tilted his head and lifted a ruddy brow at us.

"No!"

"Yes!" Geilie grinned evilly. "This is kismet. Meant to be shite. Ye ken that right? I could puke my guts out right here on the both of ye but I think I'll go and talk up the bartender and leave ye two to talk."

She was already on her feet when I tugged on her wrist.

"Geilie, you can't -"

She leaned down for only me to hear.

"Forget about the professor, Claire. There's nothing for ye there. But this - Him -" she whispered with gentle encouragement before she pinched my side. "Ye're meant to fuck this bastard filthy."

And off she went with a skip in her heels to the bar leaving me alone with a man I knew better naked than clothed.

"What my friend said -" I began to say, smoothing my hair from my face.

"About kismet and all that?" Jamie asked, tinged just as pink. "I have to admit when I saw ye here I thought the verra same and risked looking like a fool just to talk to ye, to see if maybe ye remembered me too."

I glanced down to my fingers testing together in my lap.

"I wouldn't think I was memorable enough to recall."

He made a gruff sound that made me lift my eyes to his, looking at me as if I were mad.

"How can ye say such a thing, mo nighean donn? You were so fierce and lovely that night. I haven't been able to forget how yer eyes burned like molten gold, the great thunderstorm of yer curls -" His big hands made a motion like an explosion that I wasn't sure I appreciated yet there was nothing but unbridled admiration beaming from his gaze, making my stomach flip.

"Ye even had me wondering if ye gave yer man a black eye -" He paused, mouth twitching at the corner. "Did ye?"

I fought back a grin and did a horrible job of it.

"Very nearly. And you're terrible for asking." I shoved him playfully, making him laugh. A deep, hearty sound that sweetened his features. "But go on."

He rubbed his shoulder in mock offense, continuing.

"Aye, weel, it was only after that I realized I never asked for yer name and not a day passed that I didn't regret it. Until now that is - unless ye think me a fool and tell me to sod off, " he added jokingly, yet there was a hint of genuine worry in his tone that I would do just that.

Instead, I brought my hand between us.

"Claire Beauchamp," I smiled. "And no, I don't think you're a fool, Jamie -"

"Fraser," he smiled back, looking at me as if he'd won some grand prize, and took my hand in his where a shockwave passed from his skin to mine, imparting a jumble of images through my mind of him, us, together, that went beyond any dream of ecstasy.

It felt like a promise of a future yet to come.

It should have sent me running, thinking myself mad just like I had that rainy day. Instead, for the first time in a month, I felt at peace.

Like something infinite had finally clicked into place.

"Did you feel that?" I breathed, feeling my body pulse with excitement.

Jamie squeezed my hand, chest swelling beneath his shirt as if his own heart was fit to burst.

"I felt it the very first time ye touched me, Claire."

Just then my phone began buzzing where it laid on the table, making us both jump.

"I'm sorry," I said , sounding flustered, and reluctantly reached for my phone where someone was calling me with the annoying persistence of a horsefly that needed to be swatted.

Looking at the screen I saw it was Frank and felt an immediate twinge of guilt. There he was trying to get a hold of me, desperate to fix things between us, to prove himself to me. I had craved this type of attention from him before but now . . .

I glanced back at Jamie. His eyes were on the screen, brows narrowed with recognition. I flipped it facedown.

"We're not - We haven't been -"

A small sad smile crossed his face, eyes filled with gentle understanding and the gray gloom of disappointment, as he asked me the only question that mattered.

"Do ye want me to go?"

"No," I breathed.

His throat bobbed.

"Want to talk about it - Him?"

Jamie cocked his chin at my phone and I shook my head.

"No."

His ribs then expanded with eager breath and his fingers splayed on the table double tapped.

"Weel then . . ." Jamie said, with a look of bright hope that mirrored my own as the tips of my fingers grazed his.

"Well then . . ."

//

A/N: I have a long ass note on the ao3 link if you want a little insight into this chapter. Thank you again for reading!

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