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He was a man who truly cared for the least among us.

He was also a man who always told the truth.

(Unfortunately, lots of Americans didn’t want to hear the truth.)

R.I.P. President Carter

[edited]

So perfectly placed in the episode, too.

The show is at its best when it directly presents the source material!

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“I saw my mother in her coffin,” he said at last. His thumb touched my ear, drew down the curve of helix and lobule, and I shivered at his touch.

“The women had plaited her hair, to be seemly, but my father wouldna have it. I heard him. He didna shout, though, he was verra quiet. He would have his last sight of her as she was to him, he said. He was half-crazed wi’ grief, they said, he should let well alone, be still. He didna trouble to say more to them, but went to the coffin himself. He undid her plaits and he spread out her hair in his two hands across the pillow. They were afraid to stop him.”

He paused, his thumb stilled.

“I was there, keepin’ quiet in the corner. When they all went out to meet the priest, I crept up close. I hadna seen a dead person before.”

I let my fingers curl over the ridge of his forearm, quietly. My mother had left me one morn ing, kissed my forehead, and slid in the clip that fell out of my curly hair. I had never seen her again. Her coffin had been closed.

“Was it—her?”

“No,” he said softly. His eyes were half-lidded as he looked into the fire. “Not quite. The face had the look of her, but no more. Like as if someone had set out to carve her from birch wood. But her hair—that was still alive. That was still . . . her.”

I heard him swallow, and half-clear his throat.

“The hair lay down across her breast, so it covered the child who lay with her. I thought per haps he wouldna like it; to be smothered so. So I lifted up the locks of red to let him out. I could see him—my wee brother, curled up in her arms, wi’ his head on her breast, all shad owed and snug under the curtain of her hair.

“So then I thought no, he’d be happier if I left him so—so I smoothed her hair down again, to cover his head.”

He drew a deep breath, and I felt his chest rise under my cheek. His fingers ran slowly down through my hair.

“She hadna one white hair, Sassenach. Not one.”

Ellen Fraser had died in childbirth, aged thirty-eight. My own mother had been thirty-two.

And I . . . I had the richness of all those long years lost to them. And more.

“To see the years touch ye gives me joy, Sassenach,” he whispered, “—for it means that ye live.”

-- The Fiery Cross

Frank burned Claire’s old clothes.

Jamie kept them.

That, friends, is all you need to know about these two men and their relationships with Claire.

OMG!

requested by Anon: SamCait + their cute high five during NYCC

Hi Anon, thanks for the question!

I believe they should at some point. I think they've (unfortunately) been inconsistent with it in the past and 92Y has been better about it, but I really hope they'll do it soon. Or at the very least, once their 2024 PaleyFest season is over. There are parts I really, really, really want to GIF lol

Here's a little tidbit to tide you over for now. I was yelled at and couldn't get more than this short video, but this is Caitriona + Sam getting emotional and teary after watching the scene at the stones in 2x13 "Dragonfly in Amber"

And here are some of my favorite photos from the event!

From Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone, Chapter 2:

“We never thought we should see ye again,” he whispered into her hair, his own voice choked. “Never, a leannan. I was afraid—so afraid ye hadna reached safety, that ... ye’d died, all of ye, lost in—in there. And we’d never know.”

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From Drums of Autumn, Chapter 47

"I haven't told you a great deal about it, because—there aren't words for it. But one thing about it I could tell you. Jamie—" I shivered involuntarily, and not from the cold. "Not everyone who goes through the stones comes out again."

His look sharpened. "How d'ye ken that, Sassenach?"

Fan’s Choice Outlander Challenge: Roger MacKenzie or Fergus Fraser

Choose a man like your father, I wrote. Either of them. I shook my head over that—could there be two men more different?—but left it, thinking of Roger Wakefield.

While Jamie and Claire are separated, it is clear that Jamie ( strongly) experiences Claire visually (" you would come to me"), in his dreams vividly in which he could feel, taste and smell her. I know Claire experiences Jamie through hearing his voice, in her imagination, and perhaps through Perpetual Adoration ( spiritually) but are there other ways they connect?

Thank you.

This is a really good question - and what astute observations, anon!

Other than the examples you've laid out, I honestly can't think of anything else.

Except, of course, the love and longing and sorrow that I'm sure never went away - and that they endured separately, yet at the same time.