Hello ladies! I would love to read a fic in a book 9-ish setting, to see wee Mandy meeting her grandparents, and Jem seeing them again and being reunited with Germain/the Ridge in general, as well! Thank you <3
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight
Homecoming - Part Nine
Brianna set Mandy down on the bench alongside the long main table. Claire was directing Jem and Germain to clean themselves up before she’d allow them any of the bread or honey. Both boys being in good spirits thanks to their reunion, they obliged while Mandy watched with wide eyes.
“Jemmy did wha’ she said,” Mandy remarked quietly to her mother, “and didna put on a fight first.”
Brianna gave an un-amused laugh as she used a damp cloth Claire provided to wipe Mandy’s face and hands.
“Why?” Mandy pressed.
“You’ve heard me and Da and Jem talk about Grandda and Gannie before,” Brianna reminded Mandy. “When we’re here, they help Da and me to take care of you, so when they ask you to do something, you need to listen to them and do as they say. Understand?”
Mandy looked over at Claire who was slicing a loaf of bread at a small table next to the doors that led through to the kitchen. Jem and Germain burst through a moment later, their hands, faces, and hair still dripping from their scrubbing.
“Go back through and make sure that floor is clean,” Claire told both boys, holding the eye of each of them long enough to ensure they heard the steel behind the instruction. There were giggles as soon as the door closed behind the mischievous pair.
Mandy turned back to her mother and nodded.
Claire carried the sliced bread over on a large plate and handed Brianna a napkin to spread on the table before Mandy.
“Fanny, will you fetch the honey from the pantry?” Claire requested before settling in at one end of the table across from Brianna and Mandy. “Better take what we want now because there won’t be a chance for seconds.” She put a slice of bread on the spread napkin in front of Mandy, smiling at her before handing a slice to Brianna and taking one for herself as well.
“Mam says yer my Grannie,” Mandy informed Claire, “and tha’s why Jemmy listens to ye.”
Claire chuckled. “I am. You were just a baby when I saw you last. A little bigger than the baby you saw earlier, but not much bigger.”
Mandy turned to Brianna for confirmation of Claire’s claim.
“Grannie was the first one ever to hold you when you were born,” Brianna assured her daughter, the girl’s surprise at that causing her mouth to fall open. “And you know how one of your middle names is Claire? That’s cause it’s her name.”
“Is tha’ why my hair’s got curls too?”
Brianna and Claire fought to suppress their laughter and Claire nodded. “The color’s from your father but I do believe the curl traces back through your mother to me.”
Fanny returned with a ceramic pot of honey and a spoon, offering them to Claire.
“Would you like to do it yourself, Mandy?” Claire suggested with a questioning glance at Brianna.
“If you do, you’re gonna do it sitting in Grannie’s lap, not mine,” Brianna said, already rising and lifting Mandy over the table to hand her to Claire. “I’ll eat it but I have no desire to wear it.”
Claire settled Mandy in her lap and handed her the spoon to dip into the pot while Claire held it and adjusted it as necessary to minimize how much dribbled onto the tabletop. When there was a large pool of honey on the bread, seeping into the air pockets and leaking to soak the napkin beneath, Claire eased the spoon from Mandy’s hand and handed the pot down the table for Fanny and the boys to negotiate (Jem had grown tired of waiting and had already eaten the crust off his bread).
Mandy tried to lift her slice of bread to bite into it but had to blow her curls out of the way first. Claire struggled to hold back her granddaughter’s hair but when Mandy pulled back, chewing happily, a strand of honey trailed back to the end of a ringlet. She whipped her head around to look up at Claire over her shoulder, flinging the honey into the older woman’s face.
“I like this honey better’n wha’ we have at home,” Mandy told Claire. “Ours comes from a bear.”
“A bear?” Fanny frowned. “Bears don’t make honey. Bees make honey.”
“I didna say they make it,” Mandy challenged the older girl with a roll of her eyes.
“Mandy,” Brianna scolded.
Fanny backed down as well, turning her attention to Germain and Jem who were seeing how high they could hold the spoon of honey and still dribble it on the slice of bread below.
“Where did you get the bears in Scotland?” Claire asked Mandy quietly.
Mandy was pleased to see that even if the girl didn’t believe her, Grannie did.
“Mam had a friend who sent them to us cause they’re Mam’s favorite.”
Brianna mouthed ‘Joe’ to her mother who smiled at the thought of her old friend.
The boys and Fanny had finished with their snack and were smearing the remnants of the honey across the backs of their hands as they raced to the door—Fanny demonstrated a little more decorum than that, taking care to wipe her face on her napkin and leave it neatly folded before floating out of the house and toward the garden where William was talking with Ian, Rachel, and Roger.
“And did you ever get to meet your mother’s friend?” Claire asked, her eyes fixed on Brianna who nodded.
“Ah huh. When Da was missin’ Mam took us to see ‘im in Boston. She said it’s where she grew up and tha’ he was a friend of yers first. He’s the one helped with my heart when I was a wee bairn,” Mandy explained, her voice pitching high at the end before she stuck her fingers in her mouth to lick them clean.
“And did you have fun in Boston?” Claire asked, giving Mandy a small bounce in her lap
Mandy giggled. “Ah huh. We did ‘speriments drivin’ round the Common and Mam took us to a big park but it was inside and we werena allowed to play on the grass cause someone else was havin’ a game.” Mandy’s excitement cooled and she whispered accusationally to Claire, her eyes darting back to Brianna, “I wanna go back an’ visit but Mam says we cannae do that. She says we cannae go home to Lallybroch again neither.”
Claire sighed and reached for the damp cloth Brianna had left on the table, using it to wipe the stickiness from Mandy’s face. Brianna looked up as a door opened and Jamie came in with as large a piece of paper as he had in his study. A quill was in one hand, his fingers stained with ink.
“I’m sorry you can’t go back to Scotland and Lallybroch,” Claire said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure you’re happy here. You’ll have playmates nearby and some cousins.”
“Uncle Ian and Aunt Rachel,” Brianna reminded. “Baby Brian.”
“And I ken ye’ve been bouncin’ about for a time wi’ no place that’s been yers since Lallybroch,” Jamie spoke up, spreading the paper on the table. “But why don’t ye come over here and help me and yer mam make a start of fixin’ that?”
Claire let Mandy down so she could scamper around the table and climb into her mother’s lap.
“Wha’s this?”
“This is goin’ to be yer new house,” Jamie told her, using the quill to point at the diagram he’d started sketching. “It’ll start wi’ just this big room here—tha’s about as much as we’ll be able to build before the snows come—but then in the spring, we start framing this part out here and before summer arrives we can knock out this wall and it’ll be the kitchen for the larger house.”
“Ooooh,” Brianna purred, reaching over and taking the quill from her father’s hand. “If we take the larger part of the house and move it to this side of the cabin instead, the kitchen chimney will help heat it along here. Then, a second chimney on the far side here…”
“Jem’ll get plenty of practice splittin’ kindling if ye want a house wi’ two chimneys like that,” Jamie remarked.
“I wanna practice too,” Mandy piped in.
“I’ll see the smith about a wee hatchet for ye,” Jamie promised, blinking at Mandy with a smirk on his face before glancing up to see Brianna struggling to hold her tongue. “If ye’re goin’ to be helpin’ yer mam and me wi’ the new house, ye’ll need to start wi’ the right tools.”
Claire reached over to the pot of honey and ran her finger around the rim, gathering the drips and dribbles on her finger and popping it in her mouth while she smiled at Brianna with a look that teased, It’s our right as grandparents to spoil them.
“Did ye build this house?” Mandy asked Jamie, her jaw dropping when he nodded. “All of it? By yerself?”
“I had help, though… I’m sure it would ha’ gone that much faster did I have you helpin’ too.” Mandy slipped from Brianna’s lap and shuffled across the bench to climb into Jamie’s lap.
“How’d ye do the map?” She reached for the quill from Brianna. “Show me?”
“It’s no a map the way most folk think of maps,” Jamie explained, guiding her hand as the tip of the dry quill traced the lines of the sketch. “It’s no even a proper plan—that would have the measurements marked here…”
Ihad all happened so quickly. She was yo be married to a Scottish nobleman. The wedding party was escorted by several of her fathers men. The plan was her parents following behind in a few weeks time. To allow her and the man she was meant to marry some time to get to know each other. After a few days ride into Scotland, their camp had been attacked at night. Most of the men were slaughtered and their food, weapons, horses and gold had been taken.
She had been taken as well. Bound and placed on her horse she didn’t know what they wanted with her. They didn’t speak a language she understood. It sounded almost like grunts to her. Having being taken to what looked like a gathering of small houses she was locked with in with the horses. This is where she had her for the past three days. They had given her scraps of food and some water, but left her alone. She knew eventually they would figure out what to do with her, and she knew it wouldn’t end well. The fourth night she as woken by a series of shouts and screaming. Before she could even get up to see through the small crack in the wall the door was ripped open and she saw a man standing there
“Right, and I’m the High Septon,” Jamie scoffed. He sat down in the grass and started unpacking their lunch. He found the bottle of wine and the pewter cups, and poured Myriam a glass.
“I could go and punch him for ye, if you want.”
“Do the other Septons know you’re hangin’ around with the likes of me?” she asked, before smirking slightly at him. “A bastard, and a promiscuous one at that,” she chuckled. Watching as he prepared the lunch for them both, she shook her head.
“No, he’s not worth the time or effort,” she sighed slightly. “Thank you for this. It’s very kind of you.”
it’s not as if he looks for trouble. but somehow trouble seems to always find him. today however, it was him getting a really good whack from Jenny when he was trying to steal some extra food from the kitchens when he thought no one was looking. maybe he was getting rusty. or maybe he was only a good thief when it was drunk men in a brothel. ❛ she was mad my lord like really mad. all i wanted was some cheese, and she nearly took my ear off with her yanking.❜ he said, rubbing at said offended ear as he looked up at Jamie.
“On this day August 23rd 1741, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser of Lallyborch has been found guilty of obstruction and murder. His sentence was carried out at half past eleven in the morning, where he was hung by the neck until death. The Most Honourable Marquess of Groveland, through Captain Gordon has requested that this information written in this letter, shall be given to his daughter The Lady Ophelia. Please make sure this letter reaches her within the end of the day. Lieutenant George Whitmore.”
The letter shook in her hands as she could feel her knees giving in. Screaming she felt her knees hit the floor. The only thing she could do was fee the tears running down her cheeks, feeling as if she couldn’t breathe. As if her very soul had been ripped from her body. She could see him smile, and hear his voice in her mind. Reminding her of the last time she saw him, chained up like an animal. How she got her arm through the bars for their hands to touch. It was all for nothing. Jamie was gone. And it was her fault.
As the noose was tightened around his neck he could see her as clear as day. Her brown soft brown hair, and her large brown eyes he could get lost in. The way she looked in the morning sun the day he delivered her to her father. The day where the rain had dampened her hair, and some strands stuck to her skin. The wind leaving red roses in her cheeks. How soft her lips where when they kissed for the last time. The last thing he saw as he closed his eyes was the woman he loved.
