OUTLANDER (2026) 03 810 Dragonfly in Amber
The morning of the Kings Mountain Battle, Claire did not want to leave the bed. When she sighed and said, "Here we are…" his mind unexpectedly jumped to a sentence in the final part of another book Brianna had given him, a fiction he'd read, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Here we are, at the end of all things. But they could pretend this was like any other morning, watching the sun rise. "Life on the Ridge will go on without us," Claire said, and it was the truth. They could hold this moment in time, like the wedding gift Claire once received from Hugh Munro, an insect suspended in a block of resinous amber. She was also telling the bees a lot of things he wanted to hear, but he would rather be in the here and now with his wife. Claire told him what the bees had been doing. Two bees were holding each other's feet while sleeping in a flower. He agreed it was sweet. It reminded him of a poem bit by William Butler Yeats:
Nine bean rows will I have there
And a hive for the honey-bee
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
Isn't that what Claire wanted? A quiet country life with bees?
Not alone, she said, and kissed him. "I don't think the quiet life was ever meant for us."
Jamie thought about the many times he'd been a madman where Claire was concerned. "I've lived longer than I thought I would. I have lived to see my grandchildren," he smiled, because they brought him great joy. "Not a blessing everyone receives." He so wanted to meet William's eventual wife and see his children. Perhaps Bree would have more bairns. He thought Heaven should allow him to know how his family is getting on, that God would let him have a wee look in.
"Being a ghost, may be quite interesting."
He would love to haunt a few folk. A wee glance at Claire, because he wouldn't want to frighten her. Claire wondered about her parents, who she lost at an early age and never had a proper home because she traveled so much with her uncle Lam. She said she'd never lived long enough in one place to even have owned a common household vase. She'd seen one when she arrived in Scotland for the first time, but didn't buy it because the next morning she went to Craigh na Dun looking for forget-me-not flowers.
Jamie asked if Claire regretted finding the flowers and touching the stone. "Never. I have everything I never knew I wanted."
The rest was their history.
The only thing Jamie still wanted was to sleep in a flower while holding Claire's feet, he joked.
