Chapter Text
Claire had an exceptionally busy assignment that night.
In retrospect, she was glad for it. She was in her element, her body and mind thoroughly engaged in nurse mode (and therefore not straying — or at least not as often — to the pair of redheaded Scots down the hall). Between a late discharge, two back-to-back admissions, a patient with poorly controlled post-op pain, a leaking colostomy bag, and a pleasantly confused little old lady who repeatedly mistook her call button for the telly volume control, Claire didn’t even sit down to chart until just past one in the morning.
An hour later, her bleary eyes scanned the screen one last time before she dropped her face into her hands with a sigh. She could feel herself disengaging, losing steam fast. Her head was throbbing, her stomach growling, her bladder stretched so full it ached. As a bonus, every time she swallowed she felt the ominous, vaguely scratchy sensation of oncoming sickness.
And no wonder. She couldn’t remember all the tiers of Maslow’s bloody Hierarchy, but was fairly confident she’d been neglecting even the most basic of them for days. She needed sleep, water, food. A bathroom break. More sleep.
Coffee? her mind begged in the alternative.
The mere suggestion compelled Claire to her feet amidst the creaking, popping protests of weary joints. Scrubbing a hand over her face, she slumped down the corridor towards the lounge, where the promise of Gillian’s good Ethiopian roast awaited her.
Of course, she never made it that far.
She might have been able to scrounge up the willpower to keep walking if his room had been dark. At least, that’s what she told herself.
But it wasn’t.
The rapid, colorful flicker of lights across his window made her miss a step, her brows knitting in contemplation.
Jamie didn’t watch telly in the middle of the night. Not ever.
Not unless…
Unless he wants you to know he’s awake?
The thought hadn’t even fully formed before she huffed out a derisive snort, shaking her head at her own idiocy. Jesus H. Christ, she was certifiable. Absolutely mental.
… and yet...
She held her breath as she closed the few steps to his door, tucking herself off to one side where he couldn’t see her. She stood there for a moment — back braced to the wall, eyes closed, listening to the muffled sounds coming from the speakers.
“Let’s take a look at the living room.”
“It’s a little bit small. I’m just a little concerned that this may be… maybe too narrow? I’m not sure if this is spacious enough.”
“This house is about 2,400 square feet, so seeing these really tight living spaces, that just is a bit of a conundrum for me because that’s really where I want to put the square footage.”
Claire released her breath in a gust, her lower lip caught between her teeth in a futile attempt to bite back the smile blooming across her face.
HGTV. It was for her. She wasn’t mental; she wasn’t over-analyzing (or, rather, she was, but there was some consolation in knowing she’d been right).
She pushed the door open with a light click, just far enough to peer through. Jamie turned his head immediately, anticipation melting into a heartstopping smile as his eyes found hers.
“Just popping my head in to say hello,” she whispered needlessly; he clearly wasn’t asleep.
“Hello, Sassenach.” Jamie’s smile deepened until the dimples showed in his cheeks. “Did ye have a good few days off?”
She shrugged. “Oh, fine. Ran some errands, nothing exciting. How are you holding up?”
“Good. Fine.”
“Good, that’s good. Glad to hear it.”
They both nodded silently, awkwardly for a moment. Jamie drew in a breath to speak at the same moment Claire blurted, “Well, I shouldn’t keep you, I—”
“No! No, not at all,” he stammered as she began to withdraw. Claire paused, hiding her smile behind the edge of the door as Jamie continued hastily, “I told ye, my sleep schedule’s broken. I’m always awake this time o’ night. Took yer wee suggestion about the House Hunters to keep myself occupied, but… I’m always grateful for yer company, Claire.” A deep flush had crept up his neck and into his cheeks as he spoke, his expression growing increasingly sheepish. “If ye have the time.”
Claire glanced over her shoulder, then back at him. “You know, actually, I… was just headed for a coffee break.”
“Ah.” Jamie dropped his lashes, his mouth twitching into a tepid smile that did nothing to hide his disappointment.
“No!” Claire fumbled to explain herself. “No, what I meant is, I could — I do have time. Just now.”
Blue eyes snapped up to hers again as understanding dawned. “Oh.” He choked out a laugh, the blush spreading all the way to the tips of his ears. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t — I’m with ye now. Why don’t, ah… why don’t ye go fetch yer coffee and bring it back here, then? I dinna mind.”
“Would you like one?” The offer spilled out of her before she had a chance to think it through. Wincing, she tapped her temple in a gesture of absentmindedness as he began to take a breath to answer her. “God, sorry. Clearly I need the coffee. It’s the middle of the bloody night.”
“Nah, a coffee sounds braw, actually. I’ll be up anyway. Been catchin’ wee naps during the day between physical therapy, so I’m no’ tired just now.”
She frowned at him, not overly pleased with the idea. He was supposed to be getting his rest, not staying up all hours of the night on a caffeine buzz. Jamie shrugged in the direction of the television, giving her a lopsided smile that weakened the fault lines of her resolve. “Besides, I’m invested now. Will they pick the auld fixer-upper that’s all rotted out wi’ mold and asbestos, or the verra posh new construction that’s way over-budget? Cannae sleep ‘til I find out.”
Claire leaned against the doorjamb, her eyebrows and mouth quirked in amusement. “I could just tell you, you know. I’ve seen this one before.”
“Och.” He scrunched his nose at her. “Where’s the fun in that, Sassenach?”
She stared him down for another long moment, and he stared right back — eyes glittering, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Relenting with a sigh, she began to walk off, asking over her shoulder, “How do you take it?”
“Black is fine, thank ye.”
“Easy enough.”
And it was.
It shouldn’t have been. She hadn’t ever intended it to become a thing — the middle-of-the-night check in, the styrofoam coffee cups cradled loosely in warm hands, the dim background noise and flickering lights from House Hunters, the fluid banter interwoven with quiet, meandering conversations.
But finding their footing — navigating this new, uncertain terrain as the dust settled between them — was easy. Startlingly so. Being with him like this, eyes meeting in the stillness of the night, talking at length about nothing of consequence, was perhaps the easiest thing she’d ever done.
And so, the next night, when Jamie’s TV was on again just after 2 A.M., Claire fetched two coffees, smiling absently to herself.
And again the night after that.
And the one after that…
“You’re quiet tonight.”
Jamie glanced up from his coffee to find golden eyes studying him over the rim of a matching styrofoam cup. He made a noncommittal grunt as he took a sip, taking the time to swirl it around his mouth before he swallowed.
“Am I?” he muttered, knowing fine well he was. Claire didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. He could feel her watching him, trying to get a read on him. She’d been doing it all night.
It had been a relief, seeing her at shift change, finally having her assigned back to him again. Gillian (God love her) was a fine nurse, and her witty antics kept him laughing. But Jamie didn’t feel much like laughing that night.
He remained silent for a time, staring into his cup, absently smearing a drip around the rim with his thumb. When he did speak, his voice was hoarse, barely audible over the drone of the television. “I’m sorry, lass. Dinna mean to be such poor company.”
He heard the grate of the wheels on Claire’s stool as she maneuvered herself closer to the edge of the bed. “You’re not,” she assured him, just as quietly. The comforting weight of her hand settled over the blanket on his knee, and his own hand slid down to cover hers, almost a reflex.
He felt her hesitation, heard the catch in her breathing as she struggled to find the right words. “I know... sometimes... it can be helpful to sit in silence for awhile,” she continued, her thumb sweeping in slow, broad arcs over the bend of his knee. “So I’m happy to just be here with you, if that’s what you need.” She paused, swallowed audibly, and took in a wavering breath. “But if you ever want to talk, I’ve... been told I’m a good listener.”
Jamie tried to smile for her, but managed only a tic at the corner of his mouth. “Aye,” he huffed, curling his fingers into the warm flesh of her palm. “Aye, ye are.”
Still, he fell silent again, reluctant to start talking for fear that he wouldn’t be able to hold back once he began. The lass was heartbreakingly pale. Tired. Thin. Whatever burdens she carried — whatever the source of the sadness etched into every line of her face — he couldn’t stand the idea of making it worse, of asking her to bear his pain in addition to her own.
It wasn’t until he felt the impossibly gentle brush of Claire’s fingertips against his jaw that the confession slipped out of him unbidden — eyes closed, breath fluttering into her palm.
“It’s my mam’s birthday, is all. Would have been.”
He half-opened bleary eyes, tried to shrug it off and leave it at that. A terse explanation, but hopefully enough to sate her curiosity. “It’s been a long time, it’s, ah, it’s nothin’ new.” He tried to smile again, and was marginally more successful this time.
Claire’s palm settled against the curve of his cheek, cradling him. Against his better judgment, he dragged his gaze up to hers — saw the ache, the understanding that dulled the brilliant gold of her eyes.
“How old were you?” she asked, barely a whisper.
Jamie swallowed, wet his lips. “Eight.”
An almost infinitesimal nod, then Claire’s hand slipped from his face. She took the coffee cup from him and set it aside, then eased up to sit on the bed next to him, one leg bent and resting against his. Her small, slender hands enfolded one of his, and they both watched as her fingertips began to trace delicate circles over his wrist, the base of his thumb, the mound of his palm. They were silent for a moment, still but for the slow dance of their fingers.
At long last, Claire drew in a shaky breath, then admitted on an exhale, “Ten. I was ten.”
Jamie felt his stomach drop like a stone. “Ye lost yer mother too?”
He saw only a flash — a glimpse of the agony raging behind her eyes — before she dropped her lashes, shielding it from him.
“And my father.” She pursed her lips and shrugged in a very poor attempt at nonchalance. “Car accident.”
Jamie stared at her intently, unblinking; silently begging her to say more, to let him share this with her. He rearranged his fingers to twine through hers, and the half-moon of her thumbnail carved into the side of his hand, gripping him hard. She took a breath, opened her mouth, and shut it again, as if trying to decide how much to tell him. “I was in the back seat. We, um... we went off a bridge. I got out. They didn’t. So.”
“Christ, Claire.”
She shrugged again, wiping a tear on her shoulder the moment it slipped down her cheek. “It was a long time ago for me, too.” She squeezed his hand and slowly brought her wet, strained eyes up to his. “But I… I do understand, Jamie.”
His heart stammered in his chest before wrenching painfully back into rhythm. A Dhia, he didn’t want her to understand; didn’t want to see the images that flashed before his eyes with all the clarity of a film he’d seen over and over again, only this time featuring a delicate curly-haired lass.
His tiny Sassenach holding a relative’s hand, her chin dimpled and quivering, tears rolling down her soft pink cheeks as she watched two caskets lowered into the ground.
Sitting quiet and glassy-eyed at the back of a classroom, making a Father’s Day craft for an uncle or cousin or grandfather.
Brushing her teeth and washing her face all on her own because her mam wasn’t there to remind her, then curling up under a quilt with a stuffed animal and putting herself to bed.
Jesus Christ, he couldn’t bear it.
He shook his head fiercely, as though by sheer force of will he might take this from her, make it not so. The instinct to hold her, shield her, wrap her in the protection of his larger body blazed so hot in his chest he thought it would scorch the lining of his lungs. Before he could check the impulse, his hand had slipped around her and pressed into the valley between her shoulder blades, drawing her tight against him.
It was only with the hitch in Claire’s breathing that reality came crashing down on him like an overturned bucket of ice water. For a fleeting, terrifying moment, he thought she’d pull away, reprimand him for stepping dangerously close to the line they’d drawn in the sand.
But another three staccato heartbeats stuttered in his chest, and then Claire went limp, boneless and trembling in his arms. She turned into him, released her breath in a shuddering exhale as she tucked her face into his neck, and Jamie made a soft, tender sound in his throat, bringing a hand up to cup the back of her head. He drew his cheek in a half circle against hers before nuzzling into her curls, breathing in the lilac and vanilla of her shampoo, the intoxicating scent of Claire just beneath it.
It was right. God help him, this was right. She fit there, just there, tucked against him, and he into her — not as his nurse, not as his friend, not even as something so simple as a lover, but as a piece of him he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. The relief of it cooled the fiery ache in his chest, even as he shook his head and breathed “I’m sorry” against the shell of her ear.
“For you, too,” she whispered, her breath warming the hollow between his collarbones.
Still haunted by the images of the lonely wee lass he imagined her to be, Jamie twisted a dark brown ringlet around his finger, staring over her shoulder with glassy, pained eyes. He couldn’t help but wonder if she could picture him, too; if Claire could envision a sad-eyed, red-haired young lad as easily as he saw the wee golden-eyed beauty.
By the way she nestled closer, he thought perhaps she could.
“Tell me about her,” she whispered several minutes later, one hand drifting idly over the cap of his shoulder, her thumb tracing circles over a bony prominence. “What do you remember?”
Jamie’s deep, rib-creaking sigh lifted her head to brush against his lips before falling again on the exhale. He closed his eyes, just barely suppressing the urge to do it again so he could hold his breath and kiss her hair with lingering purpose. Instead, he nuzzled into her curls one last time, breathing her in, and then laid his cheek on the crown of her head. He was quiet for a moment, letting himself draw strength from her to delve into the parts of his memory better left untouched.
“Not as much as I’d like,” he admitted, in such a thin whisper he wasn’t sure she could hear him. “I remember she was… bonny. Kind. Soft. She smelled nice.”
Claire’s fingertips trailed slowly down from his shoulder to rest over his heart, and she nodded faintly against his neck, encouraging him to go on.
“She, ah… she was a terrible cook, but she could brown mince. So we ate a lot of spaghetti, ken, a lot of tacos. I realize that’s a strange thing to remember, but…”
He felt her smile. “No, not at all. So did you get sick of them, then?”
“Nah. What bairn gets sick of tacos?”
“True.”
They both made hums of amusement and then fell quiet again, pensive. He began to stroke his fingers through her hair as the memories spilled out of him like water from a broken dam.
“She was, um… she was a braw artist. She was always sketchin’ things everywhere. Napkins, the corners of papers, on this wee chalkboard we had in the kitchen. She painted, too. Made her own jewelry, ceramics. And she, ah...” He leaned over just far enough to get the top drawer of his bedside stand open with the tips of his fingers, and plucked the leather-bound photo album from inside it. “She loved photography.”
He felt a hollow ache behind his breastbone when Claire slipped from his arms and sat up to study the album. It took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to draw her back to him, cuddle her close, curl up with her under the covers and whisper a narrative of each picture into her hair; to explain each wee fragment of his life until she knew him — every part of him, down to his roots, his marrow.
Time enough for that later, he reminded himself. A lifetime, if he had any say in the matter.
But for now, he’d made a promise.
So he curled his fingers into the bedding, holding her with his eyes alone as she looked to him for permission to open the album. He gave her a quick nod, and then watched her — every miniscule movement of her beautiful glass face — as she studied the 5x7 impressions of all that he came from, all that he’d been and still was, all that was most precious to him in the world.
Her eyes were like melting caramel, a tender smile playing at the corners of her lips as she ran her fingertip over a photograph on the very first page. Jamie didn’t need to look down to know which one it was. Second from the bottom, far right; it was his mam, sitting on the stone bench in her rose garden, the morning sun shining on her red hair. Her eyes were closed, her cheek resting against the peach fuzz of his newborn head.
“This is her?” Claire murmured. “And you?”
He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. “Aye,” he whispered.
“Jamie…” The way she said it filled his chest with the radiant warmth of a sunbeam — those two syllables he’d heard a hundred thousand times in his life, but never like this. “She was so beautiful.”
He smiled genuinely this time, so it reached all the way to his eyes. “She was.”
Feeling every beat of his heart like a glowing, steady throb in his chest, he watched her turn each page, paying attention to which pictures caught her attention, which ones made her smile, which ones softened the lines around her eyes or caused a flash of pain to blitz across her face. It was intimate, vulnerable in a way he never could have imagined to let her see this part of him, knowing how deeply it resonated with her, how she understood the importance of these moments in a way only another orphan could.
They were all he had left of his parents now.
A film of tears gathered along Claire’s lash line when she reached the first picture of his da. He was holding all three of his bairns at once; Willie sitting on his shoulders, Jenny on his hip, and Jamie cradled in a Baby Björn against his chest.
She flipped that page quickly, her breath shaking and her eyes pained.
He wanted to ask, but didn’t.
Instead, he took her hand.
A steadying breath, a squeeze, and she moved on, examining a full four-page spread of photos from his first Christmas and Boxing Day: Jamie and his siblings dressed up in their Sunday best for Christmas Eve Mass; baking cookies and making a flour-and-frosting splattered disaster zone of the kitchen; bundled up like wee penguins playing out in the snow; chopping down and decorating a tree; in footie pyjamas, opening a truly obscene amount of presents; his siblings smiling goofily as they stuck bows on his seven-months-old-and-still-completely-bald head.
Claire was smiling again when she glanced up from that last picture. “Your family really went all out for Christmas, didn’t they?”
“Och, ye have no idea.” Jamie rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the wistful smile that twitched at the corner of his mouth. “It's, ah, it's Hogmanay, typically, that's the bigger celebration in Scotland, but my mam was a total nutter for Christmas. She spent a semester abroad in New York for art school, and somethin' about the holidays in the city always stuck wi' her. She’d start decorating the day after Samhain — uh, Halloween. Drove my da crazy. Christmas music blasting all hours of the day and night. We we had these, uh, these giant blow-up snowmen that went out on the front lawn, and this full life-size reindeer set for the top of the barn. Mam would go out and string up lights on literally every tree and building on the whole property, and then she’d um, she’d go ‘round and put these wee red and green bows on all the sheep—” Claire threw her head back laughing, and Jamie cracked a grin. “Ye think I’m kidding?! She did! It was, um…” He started laughing too (Christ, his Sassenach’s laugh was contagious), and he shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “It was somethin’ else.”
“It sounds like it.” After a moment, their joint laughter dwindled to smiling hums, and Claire readjusted her hand in his, so that they were palm to palm, her fingers wrapping around his. “It sounds wonderful, Jamie,” she said softly, the old familiar sadness bleeding through her smile.
He felt the smile drain from his own face as the hollow ache of reality caught up with him; the remembrance of a childhood ended abruptly and tragically, and the many years of somber, quiet Christmases at Lallybroch without his mam there to brighten them. Tucking the glittering whimsy of his memories carefully back into the recesses of his heart, Jamie dropped his lashes, watching his thumb drift back and forth over the side of Claire’s hand.
“We have this tradition.” His voice was a hoarse murmur, pitched low enough that she wouldn’t hear the strain. “On her birthday, we um… we always go decorate her grave. We have this, ah, this god-awful sequined tree skirt that we wrap around the headstone, and we string up lights and tinsel and put up a wee wreath. Used to bring a popcorn and cranberry strand too, but the birds always got to it.”
Jamie smiled briefly, let out a huff of a laugh before his face fell again. Claire leaned forward to rest her head on his shoulder, and he closed his eyes, trying very hard to keep his voice steady.
“When we were bairns, we’d, ah, we’d bring biscuits and thermoses of hot cocoa, and Da would bring a flask of her favorite whisky, and we’d sit together and just… just talk about her, ye ken? Tell stories. Willie and Jen always had so many more’n I did, just cause they’d had her longer. We didna really… we didna talk about her much otherwise. So I always loved her birthday, cos I’d… I’d learn something new every time, something I didna ken about her. And my da, he was… he was quiet those first few years, and even worse after Willie died. But he, ah… at some point Jenny ran out of things she remembered, ye ken, and… and so he started tellin’ us things. From before we were born, or from when we were too young to remember. He’d pick one story for each of us, for Jen and me, every year, somethin’ we’d never heard before.”
He could feel it, a single tear quivering on his lashes, waiting to spill. He swallowed hard, filled his aching lungs with air a few times, and still, his voice came out grated and raw. “Canna help but wonder what he would have told me today, ye ken? Or next year, or the year after that. It just, ah… it just hit me, I suppose, that I’ll never learn anything else about her. It was like she wasn’t… she wasn’t truly gone, because I was still getting to know her. But now, it’s just… it’s done now. She’s gone. They both are.”
He wasn’t sure when Claire had started crying, but suddenly he heard her, felt her whole body clutch with a sob. Surprise yielded quickly to concern, and he turned into her, wrapping her tight, his own sadness temporarily drowned in the need to ease hers.
“Shh, shh, a nighean, dinna cry…”
She shook her head fiercely against his neck, sucked in a gasp that stuttered into a sob. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “Jamie, I’m so — I’m so sorry, I…”
His fingers stroked through her hair, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head before he could catch himself, seeking desperately to comfort her. On instinct, he began to sway her back and forth, rubbing her back. He had vague memories of being rocked himself when he was a lad, cradled against his mother’s breast, and later Jenny’s, when she was gone. They both always said the same thing to him, and so he whispered it into the crown of Claire’s head.
“Shh, lay your head, mo chridhe, lay your head awhile. I’ve got ye.”
When that only made her cry harder, he shifted her closer in his arms, and began murmuring to her in the Gàidhlig, letting the lilting tone soothe her. Under the careful veil of a language she didn’t understand, he poured out his heart to her, praying that the meaning would reach her somehow, even if the words were lost.
She quieted after a time, snuffling and shaking, wiping her eyes and nose on the shoulder of his gown. When she lifted her head, her eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, still shining with pain and apology even as she tried to laugh off her own emotional outburst.
“Sorry, I… I’ll have to get you a clean gown,” she muttered.
“It’s alright,” he soothed, reaching up to brush away a curl that was plastered to her face. He held her gaze long enough for her to get the deeper message: she was safe with him; her hurts were safe, her vulnerability was safe.
She nodded faintly after a moment, her eyes still locked on his, and he returned it.
When she blinked, he saw the shutters close; saw the precise moment that she withdrew into herself, back into nurse mode.
“I’d better, ah, I’d better wash my face and go check on my other patients. I think I’ve blown through my coffee break and lunch hour both.”
“Aye, of course,” he said, squaring his jaw and letting his hand slip away from her.
His Sassenach was off the next night.
She’d told him when she left that morning, her eyes still faintly puffy, her lips drawn just a little too tight. She would be off one day, and then she would be back for a stretch after that.
He’d nodded, wished her a nice night off. Professional, courteous. The words were right, even if their gazes lingered a few seconds too long, holding too much knowledge, too much pain for the boundaries they were both trying and failing to maintain.
He worked hard with PT that day, throwing himself into the physical labor as if he could somehow transfer the ache from his chest to his tired, shaking muscles.
He was out like a light, sound asleep five minutes after Lisa and Shariah left him at 6 P.M.
So he wasn’t entirely sure when she’d come.
When he woke, it was pitch dark beyond his window, but his room was cast in a warm, dim golden glow. Squinting in confusion, he lifted his head from the pillow to find its source.
His breath hitched when he did.
On the bedside table behind him sat a slender white picture frame. His mother smiled serenely within its borders, cradling him in her rose garden.
The frame was centered on a tiny, apartment-sized tree skirt, encircled by a wreath and several flickering electric tea candles.
A letter was tucked up beneath it, and Jamie’s hand shook as he reached for it and carefully unfolded it.
I know it’s not the same, but it’s tradition, after all.
You did tell stories about her today, Jamie. I just brought the decorations, and the cocoa and biscuits (in your top drawer. I hope you like chocolate chip?)
C
P.S. In case you’re still hungry, I’m having tacos delivered to your room during House Hunters tonight. We can discuss the abominable flooring choices (naturally, I’ve seen this one) when I see you tomorrow.
P.S.S. It’s not my place, I realize, but I will say I wish very much that I had siblings who could share memories of my parents with me. You have every right to be angry with your sister, but perhaps you’d consider setting aside your differences just for today? She’s missing them, too.
Jamie closed his eyes on tears, holding the paper to his heart.
Opened them several minutes later, and read it again.
Picked up his mobile, and let his thumb hover, trembling, over the first number on his Favorite Contacts.
Swallowed hard before pressing send.
It was just after one in the morning in Scotland, but she answered on the first ring.
“Jamie?”
His voice wavered and cracked over the two words he hadn’t thought he’d ever say again.
“Hi Jen…”